Tl^e Ideality 



o/ I^eligior^ 



Var^ Dyke 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



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THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 



THE 



REALITY OF RELIGION 



BY 



HENRY J. VAN DYKE, JR., d.d. 

PASTOR OF THE BRICK CHURCH, NEW YORK 



Fecistl nos ad Te, et inqutetum est 
cor nostrum donee requiescat in Te. 

St. Aug. Conf. i. i. 



5a™ii!^ 



DEC 3 1884 



V^ 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1884 



3-^' 



&\ 



^^st 



7 



Copyright, 1884, 
By CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge '. 
Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 






0^ 

^' PREFACE. 



Amid the strife of systems and the war 
of words our souls are thirsting for the liv- 
ing God. We long to find and know Him, 
to touch Him with the outstretched hands 
of faith and love, to feel Him drawing near 
to us and filling the dry cisterns of our lives 
with the sweet, clear waters of Divine com- 
munion. Even as one who has wandered 
long in the desert yearns and pants for the 
flowing spring, so our heart and flesh cry 
out for God. 

After all, this is the deepest need of hu- 
manity. This is what we desire most ar- 
dently : not so much the proof of theories 
and the unfolding of doctrines ; not so much 
the criticism of Scripture and the triumph- 
ant vindication of certain forms of belief ; 
not so much the development of more elab- 
orate modes of worship and church govern- 
ment, or the return to a more primitive sim- 
plicity ; not anything in the world do we 



Ylii PREFACE. 

desire so much as to come into close and 
living contact with that Perfect and Eter- 
nal Spirit in whom our souls must find their 
only rest. 

We do not sneer at the dogmas of theol- 
ogy. They are certainly as important as 
the dogmas of science. We do not despise 
the questions of ritual. They are at least 
of equal consequence with the questions of 
social order. But religion is infinitel}^ be- 
yond all these. It is more vital and more 
profound. It does not appeal to the intel- 
lect alone. It is not satisfied with the con- 
clusions of logic. Nor does it rest at ease 
upon the aesthetic sense. It reaches down 
into the very depths of the living, throb- 
bing human heart, and stirs a longing which 
nothing outward and formal can ever still, 
— the longing for j^ersonal fellowship ivith 
God. 

Yet I cannot help feeling that a great 
part of our religious life comes far short 
of this. We play with forms and sym- 
bols ; we repeat creeds and prayers ; we let 
others do our thinking and feeling for us, 



PREFACE, IX 

and then vainly strive to lift ourselves, by 
an effort of the will, to the height of their 
experience. Is it not true ? Has it never 
come over you like a shadow of gloom? 
Have you never sat in the church, — your 
eyes delighted with the solemnities of arch 
and window, — your ears thrilled with the 
rushing music of great psalms, — but your 
heart empty and sad, yearning for some- 
thing more and better, without which all 
the rest is but a hollow dream ? Have you 
never followed with painful care the course 
of some intense theological controversy, link- 
ing your mind with the tempered steel of 
closest argument to the right conclusion, 
and then asked at the end, "But where is 
my God?" 

Surely there must be something more 
than forms, either of worship or of belief. 
There must be realities^ which we can feel 
and know in the innermost recesses of our 
spiritual life. And if we can once touch 
these and hold them fast, then our souls will 
be satisfied, and we shall not be greatly 
moved. The lesser conflict may long con- 



X PREFACE. 

tinue ; the strife about modes and degrees, 
the controversies of doctrine and ritual, may- 
pass like storms across the world, but we 
who have touched the realities can wait in 
patience and in peace, as those who have 
entered into rest and victory even in the 
midst of conflict. 

I believe that there are men and women 
of every class and creed, scattered through- 
out the world, who have felt, with pain and 
hunger of heart, this craving for reality in 
religion. And to them, as to unknown 
friends, to whom I am bound by the secret 
tie of a common need and a common hope, 
I send out this little book. 

It was written from the heart, and per- 
haps this may help it to find its way to the 
heart. It has no reference to points of 
temporary interest or transient dispute. It 
does not attempt to defend an old theol- 
ogy. Nor does it profess to teach a new 
theology. For I think that it matters lit- 
tle whether a theology be new or old ; the 
one thing needful is that it should be real 
and true. And this I am sure of, that 



PREFACE. XI 

the life of Moses and David and Isaiah 
and Paul and John, — the life which throbs 
and burns with '' unquench^d fire," in every 
page of the Bible histories, — the life that 
was filled to overflowing with the conscious 
presence of God, is the highest and best 
life ever reached by man. It is the same 
in every age : ever old and ever new. And 
the secret of it lies in the reality of re- 
ligion. 

No one can see the defects and short- 
comings of this book more clearly than I 
do. And certainly no one else can regret 
them so much. Many things have been 
touched but briefly and imperfectly ; many 
thoughts have failed, and could not help 
failing, to find such expression in words 
as should make them clear and luminous ; 
and much of what is best and deepest has 
been left untouched. Writing to-day in a 
very lonely place, far away from the noise 
and talk of the world, with the everlasting 
hills looking down in silent majesty upon 
me, I feel that human language cannot ut- 
ter the deep things of God and the soul. 



Xll PREFACE. 

But if this book, with all its imperfections, 
shall find its way to one heart that wants it, 
— if it shall bring help and strength to one 
of my fellow-men who is striving to enter 
into the realities of spiritual life^ its pur- 
pose will he accomplished and its reward 
abundant. 

It would be impossible in a work of this 
character to make acknowledgment of all 
my obligations for thoughts and illustra- 
tions. But I cannot forbear to mention my 
profound indebtedness to the " University 
Sermons " of Canon Liddon, the '' Theolog- 
ical Essays" of Mr. Richard Holt Hutton, 
Professor Robert Flint's "Theism," and Dr. 
W. G. T. Shedd's '' Sermons to the Spirit- 
ual Man." 

Saranac Lake, 

August, 1884. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

I. A Eeal Keligion necessary 1 

II. The Living God 25 

III. The Living Soul 47 

IV. The Living Word . 71 

V. The Living Sacrifice 97 

VI. The Living Christ 121 



I. 

A REAL RELIGION NECESSARY. 



I. 



St. John iv. 24. God is a spirit^ and they that worship 
Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. 

This text is central. It is a starting- 
point from which we may set out to ex- 
plore many regions of truth. It is a con- 
verging point at which many lines of 
experience and reasoning come together. 
It is a polar point, jBxed, immovable, se- 
cure, by which we may correct our reck- 
onings and lay out our courses, even as 
that pale, cold star in heaven, which ever 
keeps the same place and about which the 
greater and the lesser lights are wheeling, 
— even as the steadfast north star is the 
corrector of all compasses and the mari- 
ner's constant guide over the trackless 
waste of waters. 

And yet this text was first spoken to an 



4 TEE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

unknown and ignorant woman who had 
come to draw water from a wayside well. 
She was not wise, she was not cultured, she 
was not high-minded. She was not even 
one of the chosen people of God. She was 
as common and dull a soul as you might 
have found in the poor Samaritan city of 
Sychar. Yet to her this sublime and cen- 
tral truth was first uttered from the lips of 
Christ ; proving that God is sovereign in 
his revelations, enlighteniDg whom He will, 
and having no respect of persons. And 
by her it was received ; proving that the 
simplest human soul is adapted to the re- 
ception of the heavenly light, which needs 
but the open heart to flow in, bringing ful- 
ness of wisdom and eternal life. 

Look closely at this verse, I pray j'OU, 
before we enter upon the course of thought 
which is to engage us for a little while. 
We are about to study the reality of relig- 
ion. We want to reach the essence of it; 
to pierce through the outer shell; to lay 
aside all uncertainties and shams and illu- 
sions, — yes, to lay aside even those things 



A REAL RELIGION NECESSARY. 5 

which, while true and genuine in them- 
selves, are yet secondary and non-essential, 
and, if it be possible, to stand face to face 
with the naked facts ; to strip away all 
ornaments and trivialities, and with open 
eyes, reverently but clearly, behold the real 
life of the soul in its relation to God, lay- 
ing hold with firm and true grasp on "the 
substance of things hoped for, the evidence 
of things not seen." The substance, not 
the shadow. No mere form, nor theory, 
nor idea, but the reality of religion. 

Here, then, is our point of departure. 
This word of the world's Teacher, clear, 
luminous, unmistakable, spoken so simply 
and naturally in the course of a roadside 
talk with a stranger, and yet reaching down 
in the profundity of its meaning to the very 
bottom depth of thought, — this word is 
more than worthy to stand at the begin- 
ning of our meditations. For it declares 
unto us that which we are seeking, — God, 
the human soul, the real and living tie 
which joins them. And all our reasoning 
beyond this will be but the verifying and 



6 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

unfolding of Christ's sublime utterance in 
the light of other facts and other rays of 
revelation. 

But, for the present, we must mark most 
carefully the spirit and purpose in which 
these words were spoken. Jesus of Naza- 
reth, weary and thirsty, is sitting beside the 
well of Jacob, just outside the city of Sy- 
char. A woman comes to draw water. He 
asks her for a drink. But He desires some- 
thing more than He asks for. He is thirst- 
ing for the salvation of this poor woman's 
soul ; and so He makes His simple request 
for a draught of water the occasion of a 
conversation upon higher themes, to which 
He leads the way as skilfully and courte- 
ously as if He were speaking to a princess. 
He introduces the subject of religion. 

How does she meet it ? She imagines 
that she is already a religious person. And 
doubtless, in a certain sense, she is. She 
has a creed, she has a church, she says her 
prayers. But the first thought which rises 
in her mind at the mention of religion is the 
difference between His creed, as a Jew, and 



A REAL RELIGION NECESSARY, 7 

hers, as a Samaritan. She descends in- 
stantly upon the fact that He worships in 
one Temple, she in another. She touches at 
once, with a firm and conflict-seeking hand, 
upon the great standing quarrel between 
His people and hers. " Our fathers wor- 
shipped in this mountain, and ye say that 
in Jerusalem is the place where men ought 
to worship." This, chiefly, is what religion 
means to her ; an outward form, a visible 
worship, a sacred locality, a bitter enmity 
against all who hold a different tradition of 
the true place and mode of divine service. 
And is it not natural for her to feel thus ? 
Doubtless the controversy between the 
Jews and the Samaritans is the religious 
topic which she has heard discussed most 
frequently. Doubtless she has been taught 
to rest with confidence upon the superiority 
of Mount Gerizim to Mount Zion, and con- 
tent her soul with the scrupulous observ- 
ance of those forms and feasts which her 
people regarded as essential to the true re- 
ligion. She cannot understand the need or 
the possibility of learning anything about 



8 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

religion from a man whose fathers wor- 
sliipped in Jerusalem. 

Bat Christ sweeps away all this as the 
wind sweeps a mist from the mountain. 
This is unsubstantial and unreal. This 
question of modes and places, this strife be- 
tween Gerizim and Zion, will vanish in the 
coming years like a wraith of vapor. If 
religion were no more than this it would 
be a vain thing, — empty, worthless, perish- 
ing; not a spring of living water, but a 
shimmering mirage at which no soul could 
ever truly quench its thirst. Behind all 
visible forms, beneath all outward appear- 
ances, lies the reality of religion, — the liv- 
ing intercourse of the living soul with the 
living God. Worship is the embodiment ; 
but, without the vital spark, worship is only 
a body, a puppet, a corpse, a mockery. For 
God is spmt^ and they that woj^shij) Him 
must worship Him in spirit and in truth. 

This was what the woman of Samaria in 
her foolish blindness, in her dull content 
with a mere sham of a religion, needed to 
learn. And this is what we also, in this age 



A REAL RELIGION NECESSARY. 9 

of shams, when there is so much talk on the 
surface and so little thought in the depths, 
need to learn and to remember, for the 
peace and welfare of our souls. Shall we 
shrink from the pain and labor of the les- 
son ? Would you rather dwell in the care- 
less ease of a traditional creed and a formal 
worship, and hear your chosen preacher 
speak pleasantly of indifferent themes, or 
draw bright pictures of Scripture heroes, 
or justify with ponderous argument the 
claims of your ecclesiastical Mount Gerizim 
against all the mountains of the other sects? 
When the air is filled with sneers and scoffs 
and questions, w^hen men treat Christianity 
with polite contempt as a modern scientist 
might treat a ghost, when they say to you, 
coarsely or courteously as the case may be, 
^' After all, your religion is only a dream," 
will you reply, as some have done, " Well, 
if it be a dream I pray you do not waken 
me"? 

Nay, if it be a dream, — if these precious 
hopes, these aspirations and yearnings of 
the soul, these consolations of faith, this 



10 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

Father's hand touching ours in the dark- 
ness, this Saviour's face shining through 
the gloom of death, this hell to shun, this 
blessed heaven to v^in, — if this be all a 
dream, then I pray God, if there be a God, 
or any power, benign or baleful, above our 
human life, v^aken me ! Yes, though the 
thunderbolt shatter my fancied bliss for- 
ever. Yes, though the lightning-flash of 
truth sear my brain to the quick, — waken 
me ! For the soul sunk in dreams is lost 
even here. I vrill not waste my only life 
in visions. Better a dreadful truth than 
the sweetest lie. I will give a whole world 
of golden dreams for just one handful of 
reality. 

But is this attainable? Is it possible for 
us ever to find in the sphere of religion any- 
thing so clear and firm and tangible that we 
can lay hold of it with positive assurance, 
as we grasp the trunk of a tree, as we record 
a fact of history, as we formulate a law of 
science, and say, "This is real, this we 
touch, this we know, it cannot be shaken " ? 

Here, you see, is the question, — a ques- 



A REAL RELIGION NECESSARY. 11 

tion which does not merely divide atheists 
from theists, and infidels from believers, but 
rises also within the ranks of faith, and 
separates the professed defenders of Chris- 
tianity into two great classes. On the one 
side are those who regard religion as a mat- 
ter of theorj'', logical, consistent, defensible, 
but entirely separate in its proofs and meth- 
ods from the ordinary sphere of our intel- 
lectual and practical life. On the other 
side are those who regard religion as a mat- 
ter of fact, substantial, actual, undeniable, 
entering into the life of man with a pres- 
ence as real and tangible as the perceptions 
of our senses or the laws of science and 
society. On which side shall we take our 
stand? Which view of religion shall we 
adopt? How shall we regard our faith? 
As a power which supposes, and imagines, 
and acts as if certain things were true ? Or 
as a power which actually brings us into 
vital contact with realities ? 

Certainly, for my own part, I cannot but 
accept the latter view. There is no rest 
for my soul anywhere else. Nor is there 



12 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

rest for any one wlio truly desires and seeks 
the truth save in the finding and grasping 
of it. It is my hope to be able to show 
that the only religion worth having is a re- 
ligion that deals with realities, and that this 
is attainable for every one who earnestly 
strives after it. The attempt to do this will 
lead us to take up in succession the great 
factoral ideas of Christianity, — God, the 
human soul, revelation, atonement, holi- 
ness, communion, the future life, — and look 
them fairly in the face, trying to discern 
their reality. 

But, before we do this, there are certain 
preliminary questions in regard to which 
we ought to have a clear understanding. 
What is meant by reality in religion? 
What are the marks and dangers of unre- 
ality in religion ? What makes it abso- 
lutely necessary for our souls to have a real 
religion ? 

I. By reality in religion we do not mean 
that its facts, relations, and experiences are 
of a corporeal nature, and can be reduced 
to terms of matter and force. We do not 



A REAL RELIGION NECESSARY, 13 

mean that the face of God can be seen ma- 
terially, or that his voice can be heard with 
the outward ear, as we see the face and 
hear the voice of a friend. We do not mean 
that religion is a literal and physical touch- 
ing of Him. For, even if this were possi- 
ble, it would not be the highest kind of 
reality. Such a religion would be phenom- 
enal: that is to say, it would be a mat- 
ter of appearances addressed to the bodily 
senses; and the first lesson of philosophy 
is that these senses often and grievously 
deceive us. 

Appearances are not realities. Far from 
it. The little child sees the rainbow glit- 
tering against the skirts of the departing 
storm. It seems to him a solid and tangible 
arch, and he runs to find the place where 
its golden pillars rest upon the earth. But 
they vanish before him. Is the rainbow, 
then, unreal ? Not so ; but the reality is 
hidden behind the shining bow of many 
colors. It is in the unseen sunbeam re- 
fracted in the last crystal drops of the pass- 
ing shower. That which appears is dela- 



14 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

sive. It is only by a larger experience and 
a higher knowledge that the child reaches 
the reality. 

And so there are many real and true 
things which are not visible to the senses 
even by an image or reflection. Love, grat- 
itude, virtue, hope, — who has ever touched 
or seen these things ? Yet they are so real 
that compared with them the whole round 
globe often seems to us like an unsubstan- 
tial bubble. 

When a man says to me, "If your re- 
ligion is real, show me your God," I an- 
swer, " If your doubt is real, show me your 
mind." 

On the other hand, by reality in religion 
we do not mean merely sincerity of convic- 
tion in the heart of the believer. There is 
much foolish talk in this direction. Men 
speak as if honesty of belief were the only 
thing to be demanded, and profess an equal 
reverence for all religious creeds, on the 
ground that whatever a man accepts can- 
didly, with his whole soul, is for him the 
truth. 



A REAL RELIGION NECESSARY. 16 

But, surely, to talk thus is a mere jug- 
gling with words. For though a million 
men may believe sincerely that Mahomet's 
coffin hangs suspended in mid-air, this does 
not make it true. No intensity of convic- 
tion can lend reality to an illusion, or make 
a dream substantial and abiding. As well 
might we imagine that the fancy of the 
child can give a body to the rainbow's van- 
ishing pillars, as that the faith of a man 
can make his religion real. 

What we are seeking is something deeper 
than phenomena, something more substan- 
tial than sincerity. It is the actual exist- 
ence of facts on which religion is based : 
powers, relations, experiences in human life 
which cannot be explained without relig- 
ion, and to which the contents of our faith 
and worship correspond as the image in the 
glass answers to the object which is reflected. 
They do not depend for their existence 
upon our beholding them. They are inde- 
pendent, self - existent, everlasting. They 
are the unseen realities of the spiritual 
world through which we are walking every 



16 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

moment. They are close about us. They 
press upon us. When we are conscious of 
them, when we recognize them, when we 
live in them and for them, then our relig- 
ion is real. 

II. Here, then, we have the standard by 
which we can discern the marks and meas- 
ure the dangers of unreality in our relig- 
ious life. The willingness to rest content, 
either with dreams or with traditions, pro- 
vided they are good and pleasant ; the 
shrinking from all serious and searching 
inquiry ; the separation of faith and wor- 
ship from the sphere of every-day life ; the 
keeping of religion secluded in a dreamy 
and secret place of the soul as in a garden 
enclosed, — all these are signs of a ten- 
dency towards the unreal. And these we 
may discover not only in the Christian 
world at large, but also more or less clearly 
in our own hearts. 

If we look for the causes of this ten- 
dency, we shall find one of them, and that 
not the least important, in the spirit of the 
age, which exalts the human reason as the 



A REAL RELIGION NECESSARY. 17 

absolute monarch in the realm of religion. 
It makes man the measure of all things. 
It depreciates the objective reality and ex- 
aggerates the subjective process. Accord- 
ing to this philosophy all wisdom proceeds 
from man, all truth is conditioned by his 
perception of it, and all religious truth is 
either formed or created by the human 
mind. Thus the doctrines of Christianity 
are only ^'the successive evolutions or in- 
crustations of human thought," and faith 
has really no higher authority than that 
which it derives from the consent of men. 
There are professed Christian thinkers who 
virtually take this ground. They say that 
this authority is enough. They say that 
nothing higher is within reach. They say, 
we can never touch the realities; all we 
• can do is to take them for granted ; act as 
if they were true, and this will give us a 
religion which is good enough for any man, 
since it will supply the great need, namely, 
a system of rules for the regulation of the 
spiritual and practical life. 

At this point, however, the defenders of 



18 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

an hypothetical religion divide into two 
schools. 

On the one side are the ceremonial ists, 
who hold that the first necessity of man's 
life is an orderly and beautiful form of wor- 
ship. They bid us frequent the church, 
and say our prayers, and bow in lowly 
reverence before the altar : we cannot, in- 
deed, be sure that any God is there ; but 
the sweet and gracious exercises of devo- 
tion will do us good in any case, will uplift 
and purify our souls with holy visions. 

On the other side are the moralists, who 
hold that the first necessity is a righteous 
and charitable life. They say : " Suppose 
God. Suppose that this is His law. You 
cannot be absolutely certain about it, but 
you can suppose it. Now set yourself to 
live according to this law. Be upright, 
honest, kind, and you will find that in the 
keeping of it there is great reward." 

Now it is undoubtedly very easy for us 
to fall into one or the other of these out- 
ward semblances of religion, and persuade 
ourselves that it is suflBcient. How much 



A MEAL RELIGION NECESSARY. 19 

easier to repeat prayers and sing hymns 
than really to wrestle in the darkness with 
that mysterious Power who must be either 
our Saviour or our Destroyer ! How much 
easier to conform to a fixed and partial rule 
of conduct, to observe times and seasons; 
to give regularly to certain charities, to 
avoid gross vices and outbreaking sins, than 
really to bring the sacrifice of the whole 
heart to the living God and bind ourselves 
to follow the living Christ whithersoever 
He may lead us ! 

Easier, — aye, but is it better ? Is there 
any reality in these forms, to satisfy the 
heart ? Are they not vain and hollow and 
worthless? Do they not mock our hunger, 
giving us a stone when we ask for bread ? 
Do they not verily hinder and delude us, 
with their false and paltry promises, from 
that which alone can deeply satisfy us ? 
For if there be anything higher and bet- 
ter for us, if there be any Father's house 
with its divine love and real communion, 
then surely every day, every hour, spent 
among the husks is a waste and a sin, — a 



20 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

sin against Him who is yearning to receive 
us into His fellowship, — a sin against our 
own souls, which can never be contented 
with the forms, but only with the reality, of 
religion. 

III. There is an absolute spiritual neces- 
sity in man's heart demandmg that which 
is real^ to feed its deepest cravings. Noth- 
ing less will answer. A dream, a make- 
shift, an hypothesis, a theory is not enough. 
It is powerless to create either a genuine 
morality or a sincere worship. " For we 
can no more obey or adore that which we 
suspect to be the mere creation of the hu- 
man mind, than we can knowingly adore or 
obey the carved and painted workmanship 
of human hands." Take away reality and 
what is left but an idol ? 

Look at the case fairly. I come to you 
asking for that which shall guide me into 
a right and holy life. You present me 
with the Bible. You say : " Take this 
book. It may not be altogether true. It 
may not have any divine authority behind 
it. It may be largely, perhaps entirely, the 



A REAL RELIGION NECESSARY. 21 

work of men like yourself. But take it, 
and follow it, and you shall pass in safety 
through the perilous waters of the sea of 
life." 

Do you not see that you have denied my 
request, while seeming to grant it? Do 
you not see that you have taken away the 
only thing which could give your religion 
any value, or any power over my life ? For 
surely I cannot be content to steer my 
course by a possible falsehood; to follow 
blindly a thread which may lead me any- 
where or nowhere. I demand some assur- 
ance better than your guess, some reality, 
something substantial and palpable. " I 
had rather be wrecked against one really 
discovered rock ; I had rather founder in 
the attempt to sound my own ' dim and 
perilous way,' than be constantly obeying 
directions which are a mere accommodation 
to my ignorance, and which will leave me 
in the end utterly without knowledge of the 
real world in which I live." More than 
this we must have. We want a divine law, 
a word of God, saying to us : This is rights 



22 TEE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

now and forever ; this do and thou shalt 
live. We want a Divine Example, a living 
and eternal Righteousness, to which we 
can look up and aspire. We want a true 
light; not a glimmering will-o'-the-wisp, 
but a fixed and shining star, by which we 
can direct our way in safety and in confi- 
dence. 

Or again, I come to you with my soul full 
of penitence and hope and great desire, 
longing to worship. You say to me : '' Well, 
you shall be satisfied. Here is a temple. 
Here are songs of praise and forms of 
prayer. Here are ideas and symbols of 
the Divine, a priest and multitudes of wor- 
shippers. Bow down and join in adoration. 
What more can you desire ? " 

What more can I desire ? My G-od. 

He who made me, and made me for Him- 
self : He who alone is perfect and eternal, 
alone worthy to be worshipped : He who 
as a dream is nothing to me, as a reality 
everything, — He it is whom I seek. And 
until I find Him there is no rest. Into His 
presence I must come. His glory must 



A REAL RELIGION NECESSARY. 23 

shine upon my soul. Not the light of your 
sacred candle and holy lamps, but the light 
of His face : not the theories of His good- 
ness and the ideas of His mercy, but His 
living love must flow into my heart. I 
must know that He is, and that He is the 
rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. 
Then Sis law will bind me ; His goodness 
will comfort me ; His grace will bless me. 
Then faith and ^penitence and prayer and 
worship will satisfy me ; for then^ and only 
then^ they will be the supreme realities of 
my life. 



II. 

THE LIVING GOD. 



II. 

Acts xiv. 15. The living God. 

Is God real? 

This is the question of the ages. 

Four philosophers are discussing it to- 
gether. The first says, " There is no God." 
This is the atheist, whose folly has been con- 
demned alike by inspired Scripture and by 
modern science. 

The second says, " I cannot tell whether 
there is a God or not, and therefore I do 
not think about it." This is the agnostic, 
who makes his doubts the limit of his 
knowledge, and exalts the confession of 
short - sightedness into the first of the 
virtues. 

The third says, " I cannot be sure that 
God is, nor what He is ; but I think He is 
thus and so, and I act upon this supposi- 
tion." This is the man who is willing to 



28 TEE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

go beyond what he sees, who loves his hopes 
so much that he treats them as if they were 
facts, who is content with probabilities and 
tarns them to the regulation of his practical 
life. 

The fourth says, " God is. I know Him." 
This is the apostle of religion, who declares 
unto us that which he has heard, that which 
he has seen with his eyes, that which he 
has looked upon and his hands have handled 
of the word of life: that God is light, — 
manifest, actual, real, as the sun in heaven. 

I need not waste time in proving that 
this last man is the only one of the four 
who has the Bible on his side, for surely if 
anything is plain in regard to this book it 
is this : that it teaches the existence of a 
living and personal Deity, who may be 
really known by His creatures. But we can- 
not pause here. We must go back of this. 
We have to ask which of these four phi- 
losophers has the facts on his side ; which 
of them is resting, not on illusions and 
dreams, but on the solid ground of re- 
ality. 



TEE LIVING GOD, 29 

In regard to the first of these four men, 
we see that he stands alone ; and there is 
probably no danger that any of us will be 
inclined to stand with him, for he is in 
the diflficult position of having to prove a 
positive by negatives. Admitting that all 
arguments for the existence of God are 
failures, the atheist must go beyond this, 
and bring facts to show that God is impos- 
sible. He must sweep the universe from 
end to end, and show that it is empty. He 
must prove, not only that an effect may ex- 
ist without a cause, but also that the sum 
of all effects cannot possibly have had a 
cause, and that nowhere in heaven or earth 
is there a lurking-place in which an un- 
explained and primal power can dwell. 
With this task we may leave him, like a 
foolish builder trying to reach the skies 
with a tower of brick, and pass on to the 
other and wiser men. 

We observe at once that the second and 
third stand together in theory, though they 
differ in practice. They are both professors 
of ignorance. They admit the idea of God, 



80 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

but they cannot discover the reality. There- 
fore the second says that he will have noth- 
ing to do with it. He has no need of it, 
and can get nothing from it save perplexity 
and humiliation. But the third declares 
it is so bright and beautiful that he will 
worship it and make it the guide of his life. 
So they part company, and the former be- 
comes a famous teacher of science, and the 
latter a popular preacher of Christianity. 

Now, in regard to their common view, 
one thing, it seems to me, is clear. It is at 
bottom unreasonable. For if there were 
surely no God at all, then it would be nat- 
urally impossible for us to find traces of 
Him. But the very possibility of God, the 
may-be of His existence, carries with it the 
necessity of some kind of manifestation. 
If He is in the universe, it cannot be as a 
mere abstraction or impotent idea ; there 
must be evidences of His being and power. 
In other words, the very idea of God re- 
quires reality for its perfection ; and this 
truth has been developed by philosophers 
of highest standing into what is called the 



THE LIVING GOD. 31 

ontological argument for the existence of 
God. 

We have, therefore, an antecedent prob- 
ability in favor of the fourth view; and he 
who declares that God is real and can be 
known has, at the very outset, a kind of 
reasonable supposition on his side. But 
certainly this is far from being complete 
and satisfactory. It is far from being 
enough for our present purpose; for we 
have agreed to make our appeal to facts. 
We are not dealing with abstract arguments 
and rational probabilities; we are search- 
ing for an actual and concrete reality. 
Evidence, contact, experience, — this is the 
sphere in which we are moving. It is the 
sphere of our every-day life, our practical 
discoveries, our human emotions. And here, 
I say, in this very sphere of reality, we do 
not see light, we do not know gravitation, 
we do not feel love, one whit more really 
than we experience the living God. 

It is not an argument ; it is not a theory ; 
it is not a leap from the region of the known 
into the region of the unknown ; it is not 



32 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

the supreme conclusion of a special and 
unquestionable religious faculty. But to 
man as man, in the best exercise of the 
faculties which are joined in the unity of 
his personality, the liying Divine Being is 
manifest^ as a physical reality, as a moral 
reality, as an historical reality, as a spirit- 
ual reality. 

I, The world is full of God. He is im- 
manent in the universe. Lift up your eyes, 
stretch out your hands. He is near you, on 
every side of you. You touch not His sub- 
stance, for that is intangible, but the force 
that flows from Him. You see, not His 
face, for that is invisible, but the glory 
that clothes and hides His presence. He 
is here as really and truly as the light, the 
gravity, the electricity which fill this room 
though you cannot see them. Do you ques- 
tion their reality ? They are formless, they 
are invisible, they are actua-Uy unknown to 
millions of mankind who ignorantly expe- 
rience their effects without seeking or dis- 
covering their real nature; but you are 
sure of them ; you know them ; they are 



THE LIVING GOD. 33 

manifested to you by their workings. So 
God is manifested in the world. 

We may say that there are three forms 
in which this manifestation comes to us, — 
three forms under which we may include 
all appearances and relations of material 
things, — three great realities, in each of 
which the living soul is God. Power, wis- 
dom, beauty — in these three forms we ex- 
perience God. 

Look at these mighty forces which per- 
meate and encircle our globe, binding earth 
and rocks into a solid mass, hurrying waves 
of the sea and currents of rivers in their 
swift flow, submerging islands and upheav- 
ing continents, driving the clouds in flocks 
and armies, sending forth arrows of light- 
nings, marshalling the stars in their jour- 
neying hosts. Do not all these tell us of a 
living spring and fountain of force ? Exalt 
their power and order as you will ; define 
their nature ; trace their method and re- 
lations; show how they play one into 
another; bind them all together into a 
coordinated system. Still they must have a 

3 



34 TEE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

source. Still they bear witness to a Power 
unknown ; nay, to a Power known, in and 
through them, since they flow from Him. 

The heathen of old saw in a lightning 
flash a thunderbolt hurled by the hand of 
Jupiter, and trembled. We call it an ef- 
fect of electricity. But what is electricity 
but an effluence of an Almighty Will ? 
And do we not still tremble when the 
bright shaft leaps from the black quiver of 
cloud, and the rattling thunder tells of an 
oak riven or a house shattered ? Aye, in the 
presence of great power, — earth-shaking, 
heaven-riving, death-dealing, life-unfolding 
forces, before which we are as insects blown 
on the summer wind, we tremble and bow 
down, for our heart tells us that a Greater 
than man is here. 

But consider, again, how wonderfully these 
great forces, and the material substances 
which they are incessantly moving and 
changing, are adapted to the production of 
certain definite and desirable results. Men 
may denj'- that the term design is properly 
applicable to the processes of nature. They 



THE LIVING GOD. 85 

may say that we have no right to reason 
with Paley from the analogy of a watch 
and a watch-maker to a world and a world- 
maker. But whether this be true or not, 
I think no intelligent person can fail to see 
in the universe that which in any human 
production we should call wisdom^ though 
on a scale so much more vast, and of a 
quality so much higher and more perfect 
than our own, that we can never hope to 
rival it, but only wonder and adore. How 
intricate and majestic is the combination of 
forces which keeps the heavens balanced 
and in order, steadies the spinning globe 
on its axis and guides it on its appointed 
orbit, ensuring the beneficent returns of day 
and night, winter and summer, seed-time 
and harvest. How skilful and exact is the 
construction of the eye, framed expressly 
to receive the beating waves of light, and, 
without changing its place, capable of con- 
veying to the brain the image of a flower in 
the hand or a star in the sky. How won- 
derful and admirable is even such a trifle as 
a sea-shell found on the shore : — 



36 TEE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

" Frail, but a work divine, 
Made so fairily well, 
With delicate spire and whorl, 
A miracle of design, — 
Slight; to be crushed with a tap 
Of my finger-nail on the sand, — 
Frail, but of force to withstand, 
Year upon year, the shock 
Of cataract seas that snap 
The three-decker's oaken spine 
Athwart the ledges of rock." 

Surely when we behold these things we 
know that a Wiser than man is here. 

And then, the beauty of it all ! the 
strange and mystic splendor that gleams 
from the face of the world, filling our hearts 
with gladness and with worship ! Whence 
is this derived ? If the universe were but 
a vast machine, as some would teach us to 
believe, — a lifeless thing of forces and sub- 
stances, wheels and cogs and bands playing 
into each other and producing mechanically 
certain fixed results, — what power could it 
have to touch our spirits? Why should 
our hearts leap up when we behold a rain- 
bow in the sky ? It is but the refraction 
of certain rays of light in certain drops 



THE LIVING GOD. 37 

of water. An orchard in the spring-time, 
covered with its rosy snow of blossoms ; a 
field of golden grain waving in the soft 
wind of summer ; a grape-vine with its 
trailing branches, and dark, rich clusters of 
fruit hanging motionless in the still autum- 
nal air; a winter forest with its smooth 
white carpet, and its net-work of crystal 
boughs and glittering pendants of ice shining 
overhead, — these are but chemical effects, 
the natural results of the changes of the 
seasons. Why should they be so lovely? 
Surely the grain, the fruit, the snow, could 
have been produced just as well without 
beauty. Why is it that they touch and 
thrill and uplift the soul ? What is the 
meaning and the spiritual presence of which 
they speak to us ? Who has informed them 
with this gracious splendor? Let the an- 
swer come in the magnificent words of the 
poet's Hymn at Sunrise in the Valley of 
Chamouni : — 

" Ye ice-falls ! ye that from the mountain's brow 
Adown enormous ravines slope amain, — 
Who made you glorious as the gates of Heaven 



38 TBE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

Beneath the keen, full moon ? Who bade the sun 
Clothe you with rainbows ? Who w^ith living flowers 
Of loveliest blue spread garlands at your feet ? 
God ! let the torrents like a shout of nations 
Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo, God ! 
God ! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice, — - 
Ye pine-groves with your soft and soul-like sounds ! 
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow. 
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God ! " 

Yea ! He it is whose presence makes the 
world alive with beauty : He it is whose 
vision thrills us when we know it not. His 
smile brightens the outgoings of the morn- 
ing : His voice sounds from the murmuring 
forest and the rushing cataract and the loud- 
roaring, multitudmous ocean billows : His 
garments of glory gleam before us in the 
lingering hues of sunset. In every form of 
beauty and scene of splendor we behold the 
presence of God. And this presence, we 
say, is a reality : it exists for us as truly as 
the light which enables us to see, or the 
heat which enables us to live. Power, wis- 
dom, beauty, — these are no dreams, but the 
actual manifestations, in the physical world, 
of the living God. 



TEE LIVING GOD. 39 

II. In the moral world we touch Him 
yet more closely : He reveals Himself to us 
as a person : He puts His hand upon us 
and we feel His power. 

Here, we are standing in another world 
from that which is known to our senses. 
Absolutely and totally different from the 
feelings of awe, wonder, or delight at the 
things which are seen and heard and han- 
dled, is the sentiment of moral obligation, 
the distinction between right and wrong, 
the voluntary movement of the soul under 
the laws of good and evil. No external 
force, no law of nature, no command of 
man can create that which we call duty ; 
and yet it is a reality, which we cannot 
question or change. It presses upon us 
more closely and resistlessly than any other 
power. It cannot be escaped or evaded. 
It follows us, seizes us, binds us. The con- 
sciousness that among the paths which 
are open to my choice there is one that 
I ought to follow and one that I ought to 
avoid, that among the actions of my life 
there are those that are right and those that 



40 TEE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

are wrong, the sense of obligation, the voice 
of conscience crying in the secret place 
''Thou shalt not do this thing, for it is evil," 
or '' Thou shalt do this, for it is good," — 
nothing in the universe is more real to me 
than this, and in this I touch God. 

He it is that calls me and commands me 
and binds me. He it is that reveals to me 
this world within the world, and summons 
me to live aright. He it is that hath " be- 
set me behind and before, and laid His 
hand upon me." " Whither shall I go from 
His presence ? If I climb up into Heaven 
He is there ; if I go down into Hell He is 
there also." The universe is filled with His 
voice, saying, '' Thou shalt," and " Thou 
shalt not." 

But, mark you, there is no constraint laid 
upon me. My will is free. I can, I must, 
choose for myself between good and evil. 
And here is the wonder of it ; here is the 
manifest presence of the living God. For 
if the moral law were natural and imper- 
sonal, it would bind us resistlessly as gravity 
or electricity, as the thousand forces which 



THE LIVING GOD. 41 

move us Mther and thither in the ordinary 
courses of our lives without our will. But 
here, at the very moment when the loftiest 
interests of our being are at stake, at the 
turning where the fate of the soul must be 
decided, when we are conscious that the 
issues of life and death hang in the balance 
of our action, — at this moment the com- 
pulsion is withdrawn, the way is open, the 
will is left at liberty to choose the right or 
to reject it. But is the presence of Him 
who has revealed to us the difference be- 
tween good and evil withdrawn ? Nay, 
not so ; but now most clearly manifest and 
felt ; for He is warning us as a Father 
warns his child ; He is watching us. Bend- 
ing down above us with an infinite and 
tender solicitude He waits and longs to see 
us choose the good and reject the evil. We 
feel His eye upon us. " Thou God seest 
me." You cannot escape it ! you cannot 
deny it! This trembling of your soul at 
the thought of wrong, this drawing of your 
will towards the right, this joy of your heart 
in the consciousness of good, — this is the 



42 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

sense of the reality of God, touching you in 
your moral life. 

III. But again, we find God in the world 
as an historical reality. Just as we know the 
reality of the Persian, or the Grecian, or the 
Roman empires by their records on stone 
or parchment, by the results which they 
have accomplished and the traces which 
thev have left in the world, so we know 
that God is a reality by the records and 
results of His dealings with men. In the 
experience of mankind His will is the chief 
factor ; and if you take that away, if you 
deny all traces of a supreme, overruling, 
beneficent Providence in the affairs of men, 
the history of the world becomes an inex- 
plicable and monstrous fable. How has the 
race been preserved in numberless perils 
and advanced through incessant diflBculties ; 
how have human industry and knowledge 
and character been unfolded and developed ; 
how, amid the crash of falling empires and 
the dust of ruined civilization, wars and 
floods and earthquakes and revolutions, have 
learning and virtue been kept alive and 



THE LIVING GOD. 43 

nurtured and increased, and the happiness 
of humanity enlarged year by year and 
century by century ; how has the world 
been guided on a course which, with all its 
windings, leads surely upward, — if it be 
not by the indwelling and inworking of 
an almighty and all wise Governor ? God in 
history is a reality. 

And more than this, we have the actual 
record of His special dealings with certain 
men and nations, — records which cannot 
be ignored or explained away. We have 
no reason and no right to doubt them. The 
Bible is a history, — a history of men and of 
God. As the traveller passes through the 
rugged defiles of Sinai, and sees the inscrip- 
tions graven upon the rocks, he says, " The 
Edomites, the Romans, the Arabs have been 
here." So, as w^e turn the pages of the Holy 
Scriptures, the handwriting of divine power 
and wisdom tells us that God has been here. 
He has revealed Himself to Abraham and 
Moses, Elijah and David. He has mani- 
fested His omnipotence in the deliverance 
and preservation and guidance of His chosen 



44 TEE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

people Israel. Above all, He has shined 
forth clearly in the person and life of Jesus 
Christ. This supreme and abiding person- 
ality, evidently superhuman, standing all 
the tests of criticism, refusing to be resolved 
into a myth or a dream, the most potent 
and permanent figure in all history, — this 
divine-human Master and Saviour of men, 
real and living through all the ages, — is to 
us the unshaken evidence of the reality of 
God. When we see Him we see the Fa- 
ther, for He and the Father are one. 

IV. But one more realm remains for us 
to explore : but one more region of human 
life in which we must feel after God if 
haply we may find Him. And here, indeed, 
He is not far from every one of us. In the 
spiritual life, the deep and secret exercise of 
the soul's highest powers, the life of faith 
and hope and love and prayer, we meet and 
touch the living God. No mere vision of 
distempered sleep was that strange and 
awful experience of the patriarch Jacob, 
by the ford of Jabbok's stream. It was a 
reality ; the contact of the human spirit 



THE LIVING GOD, 45 

with the Divine ; the wrestling of the hu- 
man soul with God, so real and close that 
it leaves its marks upon the body and the 
mind forever. Yes, He does come to us 
and lay hold of us ; He does speak to us 
and answer us, — this unseen, eternal, liv- 
ing One, before whose presence our hearts 
tremble and adore. In the dark, silent 
hours of the night, in the glaring noonday, 
in the crowded assembly of worshippers, in 
the solitude of our chambers. He is with us 
and we feel Him. When the tide of peni- 
tence sweeps over the soul, and we are 
humbled in the dust crying for pardon, have 
we not felt the touch of His forgiving hand 
laid upon us in secret? Have wenot cast 
ourselves in faith upon Him whom we see 
not, as one who leaps into the darkness, 
and found our Father's everlasting arms 
encircling, embracing, bearing us up ? Have 
we not pleaded with Him in prayer, and 
known of a surety that He hears us, be- 
cause the answer has come into our hearts? 
Have we not sought guidance and found it, 
and cried for help and received it ? Have 



46 THE REALITY OF RELICxlON, 

we not held commimion with Hitn in se- 
cret, and felt the influences of His spirit 
moving with sweet and sacred compulsion 
upon our own ? Who is it that has delivered 
our souls in great temptation, — and for- 
given our sins in the midst of our anguish, 
— and spoken peace to the storm that swept 
our bosoms, — and wiped away the tears 
from our eyes in the deepest sorrow ? God ! 
our God ! 

O tell me that this most vast and excel- 
lent universe is an airy vision, that all 
things seen and heard are a delusion, that 
life itself is but a dream, — but never tell 
me that God is not real ! For the one 
reality beyond all doubt is He who pardons 
my sins and upholds my spirit, comforts 
my grief and lights the star of my hope, — 
He in whom I live and move and have my 
being, — the living and true God. 



1 



1 



III. 

THE LIVING SOUL. 



III. 

Genesis ii. 7. And man became a living soul. 

God being a reality, wliat are we who 
know Him ? 

Realities, doubtless, for the man never 
lived who could honestly question his own 
existence. But of what nature ? Are we 
mirrors of sensation, reflecting passively the 
gleams of the Divine glory ; strings of an 
^olian harp vibrating beneath the efflu- 
ences of Divine power ; cunningly devised 
mechanisms of bone and blood, muscle and 
nerve? or are we something more? God 
is a spirit. This we know. But what is 
man? 

If we refer this question directly to the 
Bible, the answer is plain, straightforward, 
and immediate. Man is a living soul, 
brought into existence by the inbreathing 
of the Divine life and inhabiting a body 
4 



50 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

framed by the Divine wisdom and power. 
He is a spiritual creature, with supersensual 
powers, rehited most intimately to God, and 
by virtue of that relation destined to an 
everlasting existence. He dwells in the 
material universe ; he is bound to a physical 
organism, by means of which his sensations 
are received and his volitions exercised ; he 
is subjected, thus far, to the laws of matter 
and force ; but he himself is not to be 
identified with the things which are seen 
and heard and felt ; he is of another sub- 
stance ; his life is independent and inde- 
structible ; he is an immortal spirit. Thus 
the Bible teaches ; and we who believe 
that the Bible is an inspired book, accept 
this teaching and rest upon it with an im- 
plicit faith. 

There is a substantial reality in this doc- 
trine, and we do not by any means consent 
to abandon it, or set it aside as insufficient. 
It is the reality of a well-attested and un- 
shaken revelation. But we are seeking now 
for something more than this. We are look- 
ing for the confirmation of this truth, which 



TEE LIVING SOUL. 51 

is revealed to us on such high authority, in 
human nature and experience. We are 
questioning man himself, as he actually 
exists in the world, — a living, sentient, in- 
telligent being ; and we demand an answer 
in accord with the facts as they are found 
in the consciousness of every one of us, an 
answer which shall bring us face to face 
with the clear and indubitable reality. 

I. What is man ? A famous scientific lec- 
turer recently gave a striking illustration 
of his view of this question. He reduced 
a human body by chemical analysis to its 
component parts. He presented to his au- 
dience twenty-three pounds of carbon, two 
pounds of lime, twenty - two ounces of 
phosphorus, about one ounce each of so- 
dium, iron, potassium, magnesium, and sili-* 
con ; and apologized for not exhibiting some 
five thousand cubic feet of oxygen, one 
hundred thousand cubic feet of hydrogen, 
and fifty -two cubic feet of nitrogen gas. 
These substances, he said, were what went 
to the making of a man. 

Is that all? Do you believe it? This 



52 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

lecturer doubtless prided himself on a strict 
loyalty to the facts ; he claimed to be deal- 
ing with the reality of the case. But he 
was in truth most disloyal to the facts ; he 
was in truth utterly oblivious of the great 
reality. Such an experiment as this is for 
every man of common sense an instant and 
absolute refutation of materialism. For 
where, amid this mass of separated solids 
and this cloud of volatile gases, shall you 
find the distinctive qualities of human na- 
ture? Is carbon conscious? Can lime suf- 
fer ? Can phosphorus think ? You may 
combine them as j'ou will ; you may arrange 
and organize them ; you may permeate them 
with heat and thrill them with electricity ; 
but you can never recall the man who once 
lived and thought, suffered and loved, felt 
and willed within them. He was in the 
body, but he was not of it. When the 
body died, he escaped. The retort could 
not contain him, the fire could not burn 
him. Somewhere beyond the reach of 
hands and eyes, somewhere in this universe 
in which nothing can ever possibly be lost, 



THE LIVING SOUL, 53 

somewhere above the realm of physical 
science, the man exists. The chemical 
analysis has shown us what he is not, but 
it has not even touched the question of what 
he is. 

We must turn then to a better source of 
information. We must interrogate a living 
man. We must ask one who is still within 
reach of our questioning, and whose knowl- 
edge of himself can still be communicated 
to us, " What are you ? " 

1. You are a conscious being. You per- 
ceive, you feel, you know. And here, in 
this fact, there is a great gulf fixed between 
you and the material world, a gulf which the 
greatest men of science say is impassable. 
No vibrations of the gray substance in the 
brain, no theory of the refinement of matter 
and the reflex action of nerve-cells, will ex- 
plain the difference or bridge the chasm be- 
tween an unconscious stone and a conscious 
man. The sensitive plate in the camera is 
touched and changed by the rays of light, 
and a picture of things remains upon it. 
But it does not see the visions which fill 



54 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

you with gladness. The grains of sand 
scattered on a plate of steel are moved 
hither and thither, and arranged in beauti- 
ful curves and figures, by the waves of sound. 
But they do not hear the immortal music 
which thrills your soul with vague delight. 
They do not and they cannot. For though 
they are sensitive to the forces which sur- 
round them, they are not conscious, they 
have no perception and no emotion. That 
is to say, they are a portion of the material 
universe. But you are not And your 
consciousness is just the sense of the chasm 
which divides you from all things created. 

You sit apart as a spectator, a judge, a 
lord. Within the universe which encircles 
you, within the house which shelters you, 
within the body which contains you, your 
soul, your self, abides in the royal conscious- 
ness of personal identity. The spectacle of 
the world passes before you ; you behold, you 
judge, you feel, you reason, you act. It is 
not the eye which perceives : it is you look- 
ing through it. It is not the ear which 
hears : it is you^ sitthig behind it. It is not 



THE LIVING SOUL, 65 

the hand which moves : it is you who 
stretch it forth. Never for an instant, 
never by any sophistry of reason, or trick 
of logic, can you lose your personal identity, 
or confuse yourself with the world in which 
you live. From the first moment of in- 
telligence, you are separated from all things 
tangible and visible. You are yourself a 
reality, for you are conscious of it. 

2. You are a free being. You are not 
subject to the laws which bind and control 
the material universe. Your body indeed 
is within the sphere of their dominion. If 
you reduce its temperature, it is frozen. If 
you overheat it, it is burned. But you can 
neither be burned nor frozen. The chains 
of gravitation which bind your feet to the 
dull earth cannot withhold your spirit from 
the stars. Borne on the swift wings of im- 
agination, you sweep hither and thither at 
your will. The sunset gates open before 
you. The translucent depths of ocean can- 
not exclude your thought. You command 
your body, and it bears you whither you de- 
sire to go. And when its steps are hindered 



56 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

and its progress barred by some great ob- 
stacle, your soul goes marching on, travel- 
ling in the greatness of its strength. You 
may be shut up in the darkness of a loath- 
some dungeon, but you cry, — 

" Stone walls do not a prison make, 
Nor iron bars a cage/' 

You are still free ; for there is in you a 
power of will which no mortal force can 
shake or compel. The lightning may flash 
above you, the earthquake roll beneath you, 
the terrors of natural convulsions and the 
threatenings of human wrath may surround 
you. Men may torture you and give your 
body to be burned. But your will is un- 
touched. You may choose, and none can 
change you. Ay! vrhen the slightest and 
feeblest child of man has said, '^ I tvill not^^^ 
he has asserted a power which the weight 
of the whole world can never break. 

Whence does this power come ? Can it 
be the product of carbon and phosphorus, 
oxygen and hydrogen ? Incredible ! It is 
the direct evidence that you belong to a 



THE LIVING SOUL, 67 

higher order than the world which you can 
thus defy and conquer. It is the manifest 
strength of your living soul. 

3. You are a moral being. Emancipated 
from the laws of matter and force, you are 
subject to the laws of spirit. Your inward 
life, your happiness, your welfare, depend 
upon your moral actions and relations. 

I do not mean by this3 merely that a man 
ought to have regard to the laws of right 
and wrong, and that if he despises and 
transgresses them he will inevitably be 
punished ; although this is certainly true : 
but I mean to say now, that the real life of 
every man lies not in the realm of the visi- 
ble, but in the realm of the invisible. Here 
are the wants which govern him, the ties 
which bind him, the laws which he may 
defy, but which he can never shake off. 
Here is the true sphere of his activity, — 
in knowledge, and love, and hope, and 
righteousness, — and here alone he can find 
success and satisfaction. 

Do you need the proof of this ? Do you 
need the evidence that man belongs to a 



58 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

different order of beings from stones and 
trees and dumb animals ? Look into your 
own heart and find it. You are conscious 
of higher thoughts and feelings, ranging 
infinitely above these things which perish in 
the using. You are filled with desires and 
longings which can never be satisfied with 
the food of the senses. You are bound by 
moral relations and responsibilities which 
can never be reduced to terms of chemistry 
or physics. 

I have seen a man whose bodily wants 
were completely gratified, well-fed, well- 
clothed, well-housed, — 

" In glowing health, with boundless wealth, 
Yet sickening of a vague disease," — 

restless, feverish, discontented, unhappy. 
Why was he not at peace? Because he 
had a conscience which was tormented with 
remorse, because he had a heart which was 
empty of love, because he had a living soul 
which was starving to death. 

I have seen a poor child lying on a bed 
of pain and sickness, pining away her life 



THE LIVING SOUL. 59 

within the narrow walls of a comfortless 
room, in want and weakness and distress, 
and yet her days were filled with quiet 
happiness, and the light of a great glad- 
ness rested tenderly upon her wasted face. 
What was the secret of her joyful content- 
ment ? She had a conscience which was at 
peace with God, she had a heart full of love, 
she had a living soul which was satisfied 
and overflowing with the Divine Grace. 

Tell me not that this life of ours is a 
mere play of electric forces within a per- 
ishable form of earth. Tell me not that 
eating and drinking and sleeping are the 
realities of our existence, and all else is 
but dream and delusion. 

" I know we are not wholly brain, 
Magnetic mockeries : not in vain 
Like Paul, with beasts, I Ve fought with Death ; 

*' Not only cunning casts in clay ; 

Let Science prove we are, and then 
What matters Science unto men, 
At least to me ? I would not stay, 

" Let him the wiser man who springs 
Hereafter, up from childhood shape 
His action like the greater ape, 
But I was horn to other things" 



60 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

Yes, by the powers that rise within me and 
spread their spiritual wings for flight be- 
yond the bounds of sense, and by the yearn- 
ings which meat and drink can never still, 
the outreachings of the heart for truth and 
love, — 

^' the obstinate questionings 
Of sense and outward things, 
Fallings from us, vanishings, 
Blank misgivings of a creature 
Moving about in worlds not realized, 
High instincts before which our guilty nature 
Doth tremble like a thing surprised,"^ 

by the awful sense of right and wrong, by 
the joy of goodness, by the pain of sin, by 
the longing for God, I know that I am a 
living soul. 

II. But for how long? That is the 
question. This living soul is indubitably 
bound to a material body. With the body 
it grows and acts and enjoys and suffers. 
Does it also decay and perish with the 
body ? As the muscles relax, and the limbs 
grow feeble, and the senses are dulled, — 
as the breath falters and fails, as the eyes 
close, as the heart trembles and stands 



THE LIVING SOUL. 61 

still, — does the living spirit cease to be ? 
Does the light of the soul go out in utter 
darkness ? Not so ! It has within itself 
the promise and the power of an endless 
life. It is made not for time, but for eter- 
nity. And even while it dwells within the 
frail and feeble tenement of the body, the 
soul is conscious of its immortal destiny. 

1. This is the universal testimony of the 
human race. Mankind will not believe that 
death ends all. In every religion there is a 
doctrine of a future life. The tombs and 
temples of the world, the massive pyramids 
of Egypt, the glittering shrines of the East, 
the stately edifices of Greece and Rome, 
the vast circles of gray stones which bear 
their mysterious witness to the forgotten 
faith of ancient Britain, the gigantic altars 
hidden in the forests of South America, — 
all these are monuments, not so much of the 
Past, as of the Future. They are silent 
witnesses to the faith of humanity in an- 
other world. 

And is it not a wonderful thing that such 
a faith should everywhere exist ? Is it not 



62 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

a wonderful thing that man beholding death 
on every side, living in a world where all 
things are subject to decay, seeing hundreds 
of his fellow-beings perish about him day 
by day, feeling in his own body the power 
of disease and dissolution, should ever have 
dared to begin, should still dare to continue, 
to believe that he would not die ? Whence 
came this faith? Surely not from a mor- 
tal source. Surely a power divine has writ- 
ten on the soul that inscription which sin 
cannot bury and doubt cannot efface, Thou 
art immortal, 

2. I think every one of us has read this 
inscription on his own soul. Every one of 
us has a deep personal conviction of im- 
mortality. We may not be able to ex- 
plain it ; we may not be able to argue it 
out. But we feel that we shall live forever. 
The sense of personal identity, the absolute 
unity of our being, makes it inconceivable 
that we should perish. For destruction 
means dissolution. And that which has no 
parts, that which is a unit, cannot be dis- 
solved. The soul, that which feels and 



THE LIVING SOUL. 63 

thinks and wills, your self, is individual, 
and therefore indissoluble. You can im- 
agine your body as crumbling away, decay- 
ing, scattering, yanishing. But you cannot 
think yourself non-existent. 

3. Moreover, the very powers of man's 
spiritual life demand a wider field and an 
unlimited duration for their exercise and 
completion. There is something prophetic 
in thought and in emotion. In the heart of 
our imperfect knowledge there is lodged the 
hope of a perfect wisdom. At the end of 
our broken reasonings there shines the light 
of a higher truth. All our conclusions, all 
our theories, all our aspirations, point for- 
ward. Our very defects are intimations of 
a future development, and our limitations 
are but barriers which we are gaining 
strength to overleap. 

What is it all worth unless there be a 
beyond? What are the attainments and 
acquisitions of our three - score and ten 
years, unless they are to be completed and 
perfected and applied in a hereafter ? Why 
struggle and toil to gather a little knowl- 



64 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

edge that will be buried in all its weakness 
and incompletion in the grave? But Reason 
herself breaks the chains of such a despair- 
ing doctrine. She shapes her wings to fly. 
She looks onward and upward. An end- 
less vista opens before her. She anticipates 
immortality. 

And how much more prophetic is love ! 
Those strong affections which bind heart 
to heart and life to life in the most precious 
and beautiful of human relationships, that 
intense devotion which almost seems to con- 
quer personality and make of two souls one, 
those tender and sensitive emotions which 
seem so frail and unsubstantial, but have 
the power to master every faculty and sway 
the spirit at their will, — when do they find 
their earthly close and completion ? What 
do they know of dissolution ? They will 
not hear of death. They reach out into 
the gloom. They demand and they promise 
a future satisfaction, — an endless reunion. 
" If loVe lives through all life and survives 
through all sorrow ; and remains steadfast 
with us through all changes ; and in all 



THE LIVING SOUL. 65 

darkness of spirit burns brightly ; and if we 
die, deplores us forever and still loves us 
equally ; and exists with the very last gasp 
and throb of the faithful bosom, — whence 
it passes with the pure soul beyond death; 
surely it shall be immortal. Though we 
who remain are separated from it, is it not 
ours in heaven ? If we love still those 
whom we lose, can we altogether lose 
those we love ? " No, a thousand times no ! 
If this world were all, the life of man 
would be a mockery and a curse, infinitely 
more wretched and pitiable than that of the 
brutes, who perish without love or thought. 
These pure desires, these ardent longings, 
these close and tender affections, — kindled 
and fostered in our hearts for a few brief 
years and then shattered forever? Nay, 
they live forever. They do not acknowl- 
edge the dominion of the grave. They be- 
long to a higher world. 

" Love is indestructible. 
Its holy flame forever burnetii ; 
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth. 
It soweth here with toil and care, 
But the harvest time of love is there/* 

5 



66 THE REALITY QF RELIGION, 

4. Once more, the relations of the hu- 
man soul to God demand a future and end- 
less life. We know Him, but our knowledge 
is partial, broken, and imperfect. Glimpses 
of His face we catch through the rolling 
clouds that encircle Him, and these 
glimpses contain the promise of a clearer 
vision, a closer knowledge. We worship 
and love Him, but this adoration and this 
love are feeble and incomplete. Drawings 
and upliftings of the heart towards Him we 
feel, and these emotions are the pledge of a 
more perfect love, of a more living fellow- 
ship. We acknowledge Him as our Lord 
and Ruler, we know that we stand before 
Him to be judged. And this sense of awful 
responsibility is the prophecy that we shall 
appear before His face to answer for our 
lives. It is incredible that we should ever 
have known Him, incredible that He should 
ever have brought us into such relations 
with Himself, if we were but transient 
and perishable forms of clay. By the re- 
ality of God we know that we are living 
souls, and that our souls shall live forever. 



TEE LIVING SOUL. 67 

Here, then, is the truth which you feel in 
every fibre of your being, which is confirmed 
by all the experience of thought and feeling 
and will, which is echoed by the strong clear 
voice of humanity, and attested by the word 
of God. Not that you have a soul as well 
as a body. But that you are a soul, living, 
spiritual, immortal, and that your destiny 
stretches on before you into eternity. 

Since this is so, how will you answer the 
question of Christ, " What shall it profit a 
man if he gain the whole world, and lose his 
own soul?" Surely he must be of all men 
the most miserable. 

What can be compared for a moment 
with the needs and destinies of the soul ? 
Even here, upon this bank and shoal of 
time, they are supreme above all other in- 
terests. There is a hunger which cannot be 
stayed with bread. There is a thirst which 
cannot be quenched with water. There is 
a nakedness which cannot be covered with 
purple and fine linen. Vainly shall you 
strive to satisfy these wants with things 
which perish in the using. You are spend- 



68 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

ing your strength for naught, and your 
labor for that which satisfieth not. You 
are wasting your life, if you are neglecting 
your soul. Deeply, unutterably wretched 
must you be if you do not provide for your 
highest needs and care for your noblest 
interests. The heavenly bread of truth, 
the living water of faith, the white robe 
of holiness, — seek and find these things, 
and your soul shall be satisfied and at 
peace even here on earth. 

And beyond, — in that mysterious life 
which stretches away through endless ages, 
— how great, how infinite are the interests 
of your soul ! When this body in which 
you live has fallen in decrepitude and min- 
gled with the graveyard mould, when these 
walls have crumbled and this roof has 
sunken in decay, when this great and proud 
city has become a ruin, and the world itself 
has perished, — when a million years have 
passed away, your soul will still be living in 
wretchedness or in bliss. What then will 
you think of the objects which you now 
pursue so eagerly, — the fame, the wealth, 



THE LIVING SOUL. 69 

the pleasure of this world ? They will seem 
to you as nothing, and less than nothing. 
A moment of time in the balance against 
eternity i a single drop of pleasure against 
an ocean of happiness i a single pang of sac- 
rifice against an endless woe ; a span of life 
with man against an everlasting fellowship 
with God, — when you have weighed these 
things through the unceasing ages, you will 
understand that the one question in the 
world which has reality, beside which all 
others vanish like dreams, is this: How 
shall you save your immortal soul ? 



IV. 

THE LIVING WORD. 



IV. 

Heb. iv. 12. The word of God is quick and powerful* 

This sermon revolves about a book. A 
book which has been accepted, for a score 
of centuries, as divine ; a book which has 
exercised a wider and deeper influence upon 
human thought and life than all other vol- 
umes in the world, — such a book as this is 
certainly no dream, but a reality, and one 
well worthy of our attention. 

But I do not propose to consider the Bible 
merely as a book. For the one thing that is 
peculiar about it, is that it claims to be some- 
thing more than a mere literary produc- 
tion. In whatever form it comes to us, — 
written on rolls of ancient and discolored 
parchment, repeated by living lips of men 
who have learned it by heart, printed on 
coarsest paper or on costliest sheets of vel- 



74 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

lum, in Hebrew or in Greek, in English or 
in Chinese, bound in the fragrant leather 
of Russia or scattered abroad in fragments 
on loose and flying leaves, — in whatever 
shape the Bible comes to men, it claims to 
be something better than a book. It pre- 
sents itself as a living word, — the word of 
the Almighty God revealing Himself to 
His creatures. 

The question is whether this claim is true. 
Not, can we justify it, — but does it justify 
itself ? Not, can we explain and analyze and 
defend it, — but do we feel it as a reality ? 
For after all the Bible must be its own 
argument and defense. The power of it 
can never be proved unless it is felt. The 
authority of it can never be supported un- 
less it is manifest. The light of it can 
never be demonstrated unless it shines. If 
it comes to us with a quickening and illu- 
mining might ; if it is warm and throbbing 
with a secret life ; if, as Coleridge said, it 
finds us^ and touches us, and makes our 
souls alive, then we know that it is divine. 

For this is the difference between a word 



THE LIVING WORD, 76 

and a book. The one is mechanical, the 
other is vital. The one is printed and bound 
and read, the other breathes and moves and 
works. The one is a material product, the 
other is a spiritual power. And the point 
of supreme importance in all the present 
controversies about the Bible is just this : 
Does it truly manifest a superhuman spir- 
itual life and power ; does it convey to us 
the mind and heart and will of our Heav- 
enly Father ? For if it does, this dead book 
contains the living word of the living God 
spoken eternally to the living soul. 

You see at once this carries us far beyond 
the sphere of literary and critical investiga- 
tion. Theories of inspiration, verbal, literal, 
plenary, partial ; arguments concerning au- 
thorship and authority ; higher criticism 
and lower criticism ; disputes about names 
and numbers, — all these we shall leave far 
behind us. We do not say that they are 
trivial, but we do say that they are second- 
ary. We do say that men are dwelling upon 
them with undue emphasis, and reducing the 
Bible to the level of mere literature. We 



76 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

do say that the study of the Scriptures in 
the spirit of cold historical research or su- 
percilious fault-finding, the picking over of 
its facts and narratives with the sole pur- 
pose of exhibiting either their inconsistency 
or their agreement, is not a religious work 
in the highest sense of the word, and ought 
never to be made the prominent theme of 
public preaching or of private meditation. 

It is as if God should send an angel to 
tell us of Himself ; and our first effort should 
be to catch the shining messenger, lay him 
on the dissecting - table, and cut him in 
pieces, to find out how he was made. 

Bind not, slay not, the word of God. For 
if it is to save us it must come to us alive, 
and speak with a living voice to our deepest 
hearts. 

This is what we want. This is what our 
spirits long and yearn and cry to receive ; — 
a real communication from that great and 
awful Being in whose image we are made 
and in whose communion alone we can find 
rest ; an utterance from that Father whose 
face we have not seen, but for whose love 



THE LIVING WORD. 77 

our hearts are hungry; a word of God, 
which shall be quick and powerful to our 
souls, and kindle them to a higher, a holier, 
a happier life. If we can find this it will be 
more precious than rubies ; we will cherish 
it more than all earthly treasures ; it will 
be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our 
path, a consolation and a joy forever. 

We have a right, then, and not only a 
right, but, in the highest sense, a duty, to 
apply to the Bible the simple and searching 
test which is suggested by the text. It is 
true that these words were not written, in 
their original connection, of the entire Scrip- 
tures as we now possess them. They refer 
strictly to a specific utterance of Jehovah, 
the word of warning and judgment which 
was spoken to His ancient people. But, at 
the same time, they are a true description 
of every divine word. Every utterance of 
God must have and manifest these two 
qualities, and their presence or absence is a 
sufficient test of the reality of a revelation.l 

It must be quick and powerful : not merely 
agile and strong: the original meaning of 



78 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

the words goes far deeper, liov koX ivepyrj^, — 
living and operative, inworking, power- 
producing. We have here the two ideas of 
vitality and activity, a life manifested in 
energy, a spiritual existence and a spiritual 
potency. We may, therefore, consider the 
word of God in the Bible, first, as living; 
second, as life-producing. 

I. The marks of life are threes unity, 
continuity, adaptability. 

1. Every living thing is a unit. It has a 
centre, a single and individual principle of 
being. The most famous attempt of modern 
science to define life is based upon this fact. 
That which is alive must be homogeneous. 
And this is the great difference between a 
living creature and a manufactured article. 
The manufactured article has parts. The 
living creature has no parts, but limbs and 
organs which are made one by the spirit of 
Hfe. 

In a spiritual sense this is evidently true 
of the Bible. There is a manifest unity in 
it. It is not a composition of disordered 
and discordant fragments. It is one Word. 



THE LIVING WORD. 79 

A single life animates it and breathes from 
every page. And this appears the more 
wonderful when we reflect that in its out- 
ward form it is the work of men separated 
one from another by the widest differences 
of age, of character, of training, and of en- 
vironment. More than a thousand years 
were occupied in the writing of it. Legis- 
lators, shepherds, poets, warriors, kings, a 
tent-maker, a physician, a fisherman; men 
of action and men of reflection, men of no 
education and men of the highest learning, 
men of fiery temper and men of gentle 
spirit, — more than forty hands were em- 
ployed upon this work. And yet it is one 
throughout, woven without seam from top 
to bottom. The same view of God, deep- 
ening and unfolding ; the same view of man, 
piercing farther and farther into the secrets 
of the soul; the same view of life, lifting 
ever higher and higher the standard of 
holiness and love. Under many different 
forms and manners of speech it is always 
the same mighty voice declaring to us the 
same living truth. 



80 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

You cannot cut up the Word of God, and 
you cannot piece it out. Try it. Take a 
fragment from the Egyptian Book of the 
Dead, and insert it into the books of Moses : 
or take th.e apocryphal Gospel of the In- 
fancy of Jesus, and thrust it into the opening 
chapters of St. Luke's Gospel. Instantly 
you will perceive that you have added a 
piece of old cloth to a new garment. You 
have spoiled the book. You have made a 
rent, not an addition. The spiritual unity 
of the Word is violated. It will not suffer the 
mingling of any human substance with it. 

Now whence comes this marvelous inward 
unity ? Not from external causes. Not from 
a preconcerted agreement of the writers, for 
men who lived a thousand years apart could 
not have consulted together as to what they 
should write. Not from a similarity of cir- 
cumstances, for nothing could be more dif- 
ferent than the surroundings of Moses and 
Solomon from those of Paul and John. Not 
from a conscious imitation, for then the 
writers would have been more careful to 
produce an outward resemblance and less 



THE LIVING WORD. 81 

successful in accomplishing an inward unity. 
It can come only from the one Spirit who 
breathes and speaks alike through all these 
different instruments, and uses the histories 
and prophecies and psalms of the Old Tes- 
tament, the narratives and epistles of the 
New Testament, to convey the Word of 
God to men. 

We feel this by a sort of instinct. We 
recognize the same spiritual tone and accent 
in every portion of the Word. We feel that 
it must be received altogether or not at all ; 
for it is one, bound together in a truly vital 
unity. 

2. And this unity is continuous. This 
also is a mark of every living creature. It 
is not momentary and transient. It has a 
principle of life, a purpose, a tendency; and 
its life-history, be it long or short, is the 
continuous and consistent unfolding of this 
principle. The living creature is not a plant 
to-day and a bird to-morrow. From the 
first moment of its existence to the last, it 
follows a straight line. It develops and acts 
with continuity. 



82 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

This is characteristic of the Word of God 
as it is contained in the Bible. It has al- 
ways manifested its life in the same line, 
with powers and qualities which grow, but 
do not change. From the very first it has 
entered into the spiritual history of the race 
with a unique character which it has pre- 
served to the present day. The Jews ac- 
cepted it, in its first imperfect form, as the 
utterance of God, and it was to them the 
source and fountain of religious life. Jesus 
Christ recognized and used it in the same 
spirit. His disciples were guided and con- 
trolled by it in the same way. From age 
to age it grew ; book after book was added 
to the canon of Scripture, until at last it 
was complete ; but the life and history of 
the Word have been unbroken and continu- 
ous. It has not been one thing to one 
century, and another to the next. Always 
and everywhere, it has been the revelation 
of the Divine to the human. And now, 
after so many centuries have passed away, 
it is still manifesting the same life, still 
doing the same work in the world. 



THE LIVING WORD. 83 

Where shall you find another book which 
has had such a history ? '' The little ark of 
Jewish literature," containing the living 
treasure of God's word, '' still floats above 
the surges of time, while mere fragments of 
the wrecked archives of the huge oriental 
empires, as well as of the lesser kingdoms 
that surrounded Judea, are now and then 
cast upon our distant shores." 

3. Another mark of life is adaptability. 
By this I mean the power of the living 
creature to fit itself to its surroundings, to 
adjust its operations to a varied and chang- 
ing environment. And this belongs in an 
eminent degree to the Word of God. 

Consider how different are the races to 
which it has come; how widely separated in 
disposition and employment are the indi- 
viduals in whose hands it has been placed. 
And yet to all tribes, and to all men, it has 
adapted itself with vital power. The He- 
brews found that it was a sure and sufficient 
guide for them, alike in their desert-wander- 
ings and in their established kingdom under 
the house of David. The nations of Chris- 



84 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

tian Europe have made it the basis of all 
their forms of government. It is woven 
into the established law of every civilized 
people. The fathers of our own Republic, 
coming to set up their new nation upon the 
barren shores of this wild continent, could 
find no better guide than this same word of 
God. Into every country it has come ; into 
every language it has been translated. I 
have seen a volume called '' The Bible of 
every Land," in which there are portions 
of this book as it has been rendered in 
more than two hundred and fifty different 
tongues. 

It is the Word of the world. It does not 
belong to any race, nor to any class. It 
belongs to all men. ''It goes equally to the 
cottage of the plain man and the palace of 
the king. It is woven into the literature 
of the scholar, and colors the talk of the 
streets. It enters men's closets, mingles in 
all the grief and cheerfulness of life. The 
Bible attends men in sickness, when the 
fever of the world is upon them. ... It is 
the better part of our sermons, it lifts man 



THE LIVING WORD. 85 

above himself. Our best of uttered prayers 
are in its storied speech wherewith our 
fathers and the patriarchs prayed. The 
timid man, about to wake from his dream 
of life, looks through the glass of Scripture, 
and his eye grows bright ; he does not fear 
to stand alone, to tread the way unknown 
and distant, to take the death-angel by the 
hand, and bid farewell to wife and babes and 
home. . . . Some thousand famous writers 
come up in this century to be forgotten in 
the next ; but the silver cord of the Bible 
is not loosed, nor its golden bowl broken, 
as Time chronicles his tens of centuries 
passed by." 

And can not we also bear witness to this 
marvelous and living adaptability of this 
Word of God to every mood and phase 
of our own experience ? There are some 
of us, I know, who have stood, like Rus- 
kin, in childhood beside our mother's knee, 
and heard, with a pleasure which is now 
hallowed in our memory, that dear voice 
readmg the wise counsels and wondrous 
histories of the Bible. There are some of 



86 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

US who have turned, in the hour of great 
perplexity and temptation of the evil one, 
to these sacred pages, and found the sav- 
ing, enlightening word which alone could 
show us the true way and strengthen us to 
follow it. There are some of us who have 
received from this precious book the conso- 
lation without which we never could have 
borne the sorrows and bereavements of our 
life. Yes, and there, are some of us who 
have sat in the darkened room, beside the 
bed of death, and read the blessed words 
which seemed to fill the place of gloom and 
anguish with the very light and peace of 
heaven. " Read to me," said Sir Walter 
Scott, when he lay a-dying, to his son-in- 
law, Lockhart. " What book shall I read?" 
asked Lockhart. " Can you ask ? " was the 
reply, " there is but one ; " and he begged 
him to read a chapter from St. John's Gos- 
pel. Ah ! those well-worn pages, blotted 
perhaps in your Bible with the mark of 
tears, stained with the little flower that you 
have pressed between them, — can their 
comforfc ever die, can their life ever cease ? 



THE LIVING WORD. 87 

Nay, for they bring to us the Word of God, 
which liveth and abideth forever. 

II. But now turn for a moment to con- 
sider the life-producing power of the Word 
as it is contained in the Scriptures. The 
spiritual eflBciency of the Bible in the world 
is manifest in facts which cannot be ques- 
tioned, and is of such a nature as to prove 
that it cannot be a mere book, but must be 
a living word. Wherever it comes and is 
received it brings forth fruit. It enlightens, 
purifies, uplifts. It really brings God nearer 
to men, and men nearer to God. It creates 
a real and living bond, and establishes an 
intimate communion between the divine and 
the human. 

This power is not confined to any one 
portion of the Word, but belongs to it all. 
From the histories of the Old Testament as 
well as from those of the New, from the 
precepts of the law as well as from the 
poetry of the Psalms, from the discourses of 
the prophets as well as from the doctrines 
of the apostles, the same vital influence 
and energy flow to the soul. 



88 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

The life which the Bible produces is three- 
fold, — intellectual, moral, and spiritual. It 
gives men wider and clearer conceptions of 
truth, deeper and stronger convictions of 
duty, closer and purer relations to God ; 
and in doing this it manifests an energy 
which can only come from His living Word. 

1. I do not think we fully understand how 
much of the intelligence of humanity in the 
higher spheres of knowledge and thought is 
directly due to the Bible. The revelations 
which it brings have filtered through a 
thousand secret channels into the remotest 
corners of the world, and return to us with- 
out acknowledging the source from which 
they sprung. Many of the noblest utter- 
ances of philosophy and the grandest theo- 
ries of science are but the unfolding of seeds 
which have fallen from the fullness of Scrip- 
ture into the hidden places of the human 
mind. All that is best and loftiest in our 
modern thought — its high regard for hu- 
manity, its spiritual conception of Deity, the 
breadth of its charity, and the firmness with 
which it lays hold on the hopes of a better 



THE LIVING WORD. 89 

future for the race — may be traced di- 
rectly to the Bible. The very men who rail 
at it and affect to despise it owe their best 
ideas to its influence. The reason why an 
enlightened American has a nobler and a 
truer view of the world and life than an 
African savage, is chiefly because he has 
the Word of God. Blot out that which has 
come from the Bible, and you will destroy 
the best part of the intellectual life of the 
race. 

2. But wider still, and more glorious, has 
been the influence of this Word upon man's 
moral life. Wherever it has come it has 
elevated and purified humanity. Righteous- 
ness and peace flourish under its shadow. 
It is the bulwark of civil and religious 
liberty; the corner-stone of the hospital and 
the asylum; the shelter and safeguard of 
the happy home. On its sure foundation 
governments are established, and by its holy 
sanction laws are made sacred. It is the 
fountain of public equity and private virtue ; 
it makes men just and loyal and obedient ; 
binds them to serve their country and their 



90 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

kind ; summons them to defend the op- 
pressed and resist tyranny ; inspires them 
to deeds of chivahy and daring. It stretches 
a protectmg arm about the poor and suffer- 
ing, and opens the sweet springs of charity 
and mercy in the human heart. Women 
are purer and sweeter, men are braver and 
better, where the Word of God has come. 
" Wherever it is duly obeyed, it makes the 
desert of the world to bud and blossom as 
the rose." 

Well has this been illustrated by the 
words of one of the Bishops of the English 
Church : — 

'' I invite any honest-minded man to look 
at a map of the world and see what a story 
that map tells. Which are the countries on 
the face of the globe at this moment where 
there is the greatest amount of idolatry, or 
cruelty, or impurity, or misgovernment, or 
disregard of life, liberty, and truth ? Pre- 
cisely those countries where the Bible is not 
known. Wliich are the Christian countries, 
so-called, where the greatest quantity of ig- 
norance, superstition, and corruption is to 



THE LIVING WORD. 91 

be found at the moment ? The countries in 
which the Bible is a forbidden or neglected 
book, — such countries as Spain and the 
South American States. Which are the 
countries where liberty and public and pri- 
vate morality have attained the highest 
pitch ? The countries where the Bible is 
free to all, like England, Scotland, Ger- 
many, and the United States. Yes ! when 
you know how a nation deals with the Bible 
you may know what that nation is." 

Now what is the secret of this? Surely 
this is a result too large to come from any 
mere book. This is the moral power of a 
living word, and a word which is backed by 
the authority of God Himself. Here is the 
vast and vital difference between the Bible 
and all systems of human morality. They 
tell us to do thus and so because it is useful 
or because it is right. But the Word tells 
us to do thus and so because God wills it. 
He who is above all things in power and 
glory. He who has made us for His service 
and can reward us with everlasting blessed- 
ness. He speaks to us, saying, '' This do and 



92 TEE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

thou shalt live." Thus our virtue is lifted 
above the sphere of mere utility or expe- 
diency, and our duty becomes a golden chain 
to bind us to the ever-living and ever-blessed 
God. 

3. And here, you see, the moral life pro- 
duced by the Bible runs into the spiritual. 
All vrisdom and all goodness are embraced 
in the right relation of the human soul to 
God. This is life, present and eternal, to 
know the only true God, and Jesus Christ 
whom He has sent. And this the Divine 
Word gives to us. It really brings us into 
contact with God. 

Where else shall we find this knowledge? 
Destroy, for a moment, all that is contained 
in the Bible about God, and what will you 
have left ? What will you know of His 
goodness, His mercy. His truth ? What 
assurance will you have of your relation to 
Him, your power to obtain His grace and 
favor ? What will remain of 3 our concep- 
tion of His fatherhood, your trust in His 
providence, your reliance on His everlasting 
love ? Oh, how vague and feeble, how cold 



THE LIVING WORD. 93 

and distant, how glimmering and uncertain, 
are all the lights of nature and philosophy 
compared with the light of the Word ! 

*' Stars are poor books and oftentimes do miss ; 
This book of stars lights to eternal bliss." 

The heavens declare the glory of God ; but 
the Word shows us His forgiving mercy 
and His tender compassion. Every creature 
that He has made bears witness to His wis- 
dom and power ; but the Word comes to us 
warm and living from a Father's heart, 
and draws us to Him in penitence and faith. 
Here we learn of that purpose of redemption 
which was hidden from all eternity in the 
bosom of God. Here we see Him dealing 
in righteousness and mercy with His guilty 
and erring children, binding them to Him- 
self in covenants of everlasting love, leading 
them wisely and kindly in the way of life, 
chastening their faults, forgiving their sins, 
binding up their wounds, healing their dis- 
eases, restoring their souls, and lighting up 
all the darkness of their mortal pathway 
with the glow of His heavenly promises. 



94 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

Here we see Jesus Christ moving graciously 
and tenderly through a world of sin and 
sorrow, and hear from His lips the precious 
words of grace and truth. Here we behold, 
as through an open portal, the mysteries of 
the world to come, and catch the sweet 
echoes of tlie immortal songs of Paradise. 
All our light upon the past, all our comfort 
in the present, all our sweet and priceless 
hopes for the future, come from this Word. 
And by its power our souls do live. Not 
by bread alone, but by the whisperings 
of our Father's voice, the warnings of His 
wrath, the pleadings of His mercy, the 
promises of His love, our spirits are quick- 
ened and made alive. How often has the 
Word pierced our consciences with the ar- 
row of conviction for sin, and brought us 
trembling and repenting to the feet of God ! 
How often has it revealed, amid the dark- 
ness of our guilt, the forgiving face of the 
Saviour shining with unspeakable compas- 
sion, and calmed our troubled and despair- 
ing spirits with the words of pardon ! How 
often has it lifted us above the storms and 



THE LIVING WORD. % 

pains and sorrows of this mortal life, into 
the blessed peace of that upper world where 
God dwells, and comforted us with a great 
quietness, as one who hears his Father's 
voice ! 

Ah, my friends, we do not need a long 
historical argument, an array of documents 
and proofs, a profound and exact theory of 
inspiration. We do not care to wrangle and 
dispute about the letter, for we have felt 
the power of the spirit. We know that 
this is the Word of God because it speaks 
to our hearts. 



• 



ii 

41 



V. 
THE LIVING SACRIFICE. 



V. 



St. John i. 29. Behold the Lamb of God which taketh 
away the sin of the world. 

This text is like a living hand pointing 
forever to the Cross of Christ. It does not 
propound a doctrine ; it declares a fact. It 
does not move in the world of dreams and 
abstractions, but in the world of reality. It 
calls us not to suppose or imagine, but to 
hehold; to open our eyes and see the Lamb 
of God taking away the sin of the world. 

Is this true ? As we follow the guidance 
of this pointing hand can we indeed discern 
something real and substantial? Can we 
see the burden lifted from the heart of man 
and laid upon the Saviour? Can we see 
the stains of evil washed away from the soul 
by the flowing of His blood ? Can we see 
the race restored to harmony and peace with 



100 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

God by the atoning power of the offering of 
Jesus ? 

This is the question of supreme impor- 
tance. For upon the answer to this depends 
the reality of our religion. If this be not 
true, then are we without hope in the world. 
We have a God, existing from all eternity, 
perfect, serene, immutable. We have a soul, 
made in His image, and destined to an ever- 
lasting existence. But we have no bond 
between us and Him, no promise of His 
mercy, no assurance of His love. And even 
His living Word, the revelation of His 
character and will, becomes vain and worth- 
less, loses the very heart of its life, the very 
spring of its power, unless we can discover 
the reality of the Atonement. 

I ask you then to look this question in the 
face. Rest not in any theory. Build not 
on any doctrine. Lay hold upon the facts. 
Question the world and see if it has sinned. 
Question the Christ and see if He be the 
Lamb of God. Question the Cross and see 
if it has saved men from guilt and death. 

I. Behold the sin of the world. Is it a 
reality or is it a fiction ? 



THE LIVING SACRIFICE, 101 

Look out upon the varied scene of hu- 
man life and tell me truthfully what you 
see there. You behold man dwelling in 
a fair, well-ordered universe, the manifest 
creation of a beneficent God. You be- 
hold him surrounded with all things which 
are needful for his happiness, and incited 
by every motive to a life of peace and ho- 
liness. But you behold instantly that he 
is neither peaceful nor holy, and therefore 
that he is not truly happy. How dark and 
terrible, amidst the innocence and joy of 
nature, are the evidences of human guilt 
and misery ! The green and tender sward 
beside the gate of Paradise is stained with 
the blood of a brother slain by a brother's 
hand. The solemn forests are filled with 
cruel and degraded savages. The pure- 
eyed stars look down on scenes of violence 
and lust. The golden fields of grain are 
trampled and destroyed by warring armies 
locked in the fury of the death-struggle, 
and the clear streams are defiled with car- 
nage. Avarice and envy, guile and op- 
pression, wrath and falsehood, perturb and 



102 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

poison the springs of peace. From a thou- 
sand reeking cities goes up the pitiful cry 
of the children ; from every land the exha- 
lations of human wickedness and woe rise 
like heavy smoke blackening against the 
blue of heaven. 

And does not man himself feel this ? 
Does he not know that there is something 
wrong with him ? Is not the mark of shame 
written on his brow, and the sense of evil 
pressed upon his heart ? 

He stands amid the majestic purity, the 
unconscious gladness of the world, like a 
creature under an unholy spell. 

" He crouches and blushes, 

Absconds and conceals ; 
He creepeth and peepeth, 

He palters and steals ; 
Infirm, melancholy, 

Jealous, glancing around. 
An oaf, an accomplice, 

He poisons the ground." 

What ails him, the Lord of all things, the 
flower of the universe ? Who has drugged 
his cup and mixed his bread with bitter- 
ness ? What fatal power has marred the 



THE LIVING SACRIFICE. 103 

joy and beauty of his life ? What mighty 
barrier has risen between his soul and 
God? 

Sin; the choice of evil instead of good, 
the perversion of the desires, the slavery of 
the will, the darkening of the mind, the 
deadly sickness of the whole heart. This 
is the fountain of all trouble, the cause of 
all disorder and wretchedness. This Is the 
wall which makes the world seem some- 
times like a prison and sometimes like a 
madhouse. This is the curse which destroys 
life's harmony and beauty. This Is the ob- 
stacle which separates the soul, in darkness 
and sorrow, from God. The forms of every 
religion, the voice of unceasing prayers, the 
smoke of endless burnt-offerings, the blood 
of bulls and goats, the oblations of all that 
is most precious, cruel altars drenched with 
human gore, and flames consuming the off- 
spring of man's body, — gifts, propitiations, 
pleadings, sacrifices, without stint and with- 
out number, — bear witness to the deep and 
awful sense of sin which rests upon the heart 
of the world. 



104 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

Look now into your own heart and tell 
me what you read there. Is it not the same 
inscription? Are you higher and holier 
than your race ? Are you free from their 
burden and exempt from their blame ? 

You do not dare to claim it. You know 
that you are bound to this sinful, perverted, 
and unhappy humanity. The same passions 
which have wrought the discord and misery 
of the world are lurking in your own soul. 
You know that your heart has missed its 
true goal. You know that your feet have 
wandered from the right way. You know 
that your will has transgressed the law 
which ought to bind you. Dimly though 
you discern the true end of your being, you 
are conscious that you have not reached it. 
Faintly though you apprehend the glory 
of God, you feel that you have come far 
short of it. Judged by the standards and 
commandments of men, you may be just 
and free from blame. But you know that 
there is something higher than this. You 
know that these human laws and tests are 
imperfect and evil-tainted. You know that 



THE LIVING SACRIFICE. 105 

there is a holiness which is supreme and 
perfect, a love which has no stain or shadow 
of self in it, a will which flows towards the 
right with an unswerving and ceaseless mo- 
tion, — and this is God, When the vision 
of His perfection flashes upon you, when 
you know that you were made in His image, 
born to love Him and be like Him, then 
you are humbled in the darkness and the 
dust. You tremble and are ashamed before 
Him. You know that you have sunken in- 
finitely below Him, you have forfeited His 
favor, you are an offense and loathing to 
His pure eyes. 

It is a vain thing to attempt to resolve 
this sense of sin into a mere consciousness 
of weakness or defect. It is something 
far deeper and more painful than that. To 
be ignorant, and to err on account of that 
ignorance ; to be feeble, and to fail on ac- 
count of that feebleness, does not involve 
the deep and burning sense of guilt. The 
blind man is not tortured with remorse 
because he cannot see. The lame man's 
conscience does not reproach him because 



106 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

he cannot run and leap. These are misfor- 
tunes beyond the power of man's will to 
prevent or remedy, and so far are they from 
increasing guilt and condemnation that we 
actually regard them as excuses and pallia- 
tions. We do not blame the man whose 
eyes are darkened for walking over the pre- 
cipice. We do not demand the same high 
virtue from the ignorant as from the wise. 
Weakness and imperfection call forth our 
pity, rather than our scorn. But with sin 
there is a world-wide difference. Here the 
conscience at once accuses and condemns. 
Here the sense of shame and guilt burns 
into the soul more deeply than any pain of 
outward consequences, or penalties of an 
offended law. A commandment broken, a 
treasure lost, a white robe stained and de- 
filed, a flower of innocence trampled in the 
mire, a holy Judge offended, a loving Father 
wounded and thrust aside, a divine fellow- 
ship forfeited and destroyed, — these are 
the bitter things that mingle in the con- 
sciousness of sin. 

And these are the things that divide 



THE LIVING SACRIFICE, 107 

the soul from God. Who dares deny them 
or make light of them ? When the day of 
judgment bursts in flaming splendor upon 
the world, and the living and the dead are 
gathered before the awful throne, who will 
dare to lift his eyes to God and say, '^ I 
am free and guiltless; I have broken no 
law in thought, or word, or deed ; I meet 
and defy Thy justice " ? Or now, at this 
very hour, while those unseen eyes are bent 
upon us, reading our hearts to their very 
depths, what one of us dare lift his hand to 
heaven and cry, " Behold me, for I am pure : 
let Thy light flash through my inmost soul; 
there is no stain or shadow there : I am 
perfect like Thee and fit for Thy companion- 
ship : sitting among the husks and feeding 
on them, I am worthy to be called Thy 
son " ? 

We can not; we dare not. It would be 
blasphemy. The heavens would almost 
open above us and send forth a flash of 
light to destroy us. Whatever men may 
think of us, whatever honor and praise may 
be ours in the world, in the presence of 



108 TEE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

the Holy One we put our hands on our 
raouths and hide our faces in the dust, cry- 
ing, *' Unclean, unclean, — God have mercy 
upon us !" 

II. But now behold the one Being in the 
world who has never felt this defilement of 
sin, the one pure and perfect Lamb of God. 
He also is a reality ; not a dream or an 
ideal, but a living, breathing man ; born 
into the world in the likeness of our flesh ; 
growing, thinking, feeling, laboring, enjoy- 
ing, suffering, even as we do ; tempted in 
all points like as we are, and yet without 
sin. This holy life of Christ is a fact, — 
solid, substantial, enduring. It stands like 
a rock amid the billows of time. All the as- 
saults of skeptics and unbelievers, the open 
violence of avowed enemies and the secret 
treachery of hidden foes, have not availed 
to destroy or even to shake it. It abides. 
It towers high above the highest levels of 
humanity. It shines like a pillar of light. 
The eyes of all men turn to it with wonder 
and love. 

I ask you to search the book of history 



THE LIVING SACRIFICE. 109 

and tell me if you can find one character 
which is worthy to be compared for a mo- 
ment with the character of Jesus of Naza- 
reth. What company of honorable men 
would not be abashed and put to shame by 
His presence ? What roll of lofty names is 
pure enough to claim an equal place with 
His name ? 

I ask you to search the record of His 
life, calmly, fairly, dispassionately, and tell 
me if there be any spot or blemish in it. 
His enemies watched him like hawks, but 
they never found the slightest trace of 
sin. Judas would have given the world to 
discover the faintest suspicion of evil in 
Him whom he had so basely sold to death, 
but he could not, and he cursed himself in 
the despair of hell because he had betrayed 
the innocent blood. Pilate, the cold and 
haughty Roman, could find no fault in Him, 
and washed his hands in water lest the 
blood of that Just One should cling to them. 
The friends and relatives who lived with 
Him in the familiar intercourse of daily 
life saw no defect or flaw in Him. He was 



110 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

not holy on the outside only. He was al- 
together pure. The sun might have shone 
through Him without disclosing a spot. 
Aye, the sun did shine through Him, for 
He stood up before God and men to declare 
His innocence. He cried to His enemies, 
" Who among you convinceth me of sin ? " 
He said to God, " I have glorified Thee 
on the earth. I have finished the work 
Thou gavest me to do." He looked up to 
heaven without shame and without repent- 
ance. And no fiery shaft leaped forth to 
blast Him for presumption, but instead the 
soft sweet radiance of divine approval fell 
upon Him, and there came a voice from the 
most excellent glory, '' This is my beloved 
Son in whom I am well pleased." 

Did ever flower so fair blossom before or 
since upon this blood-stained earth? Did 
ever star so clear shine out in the darkness 
of the night of sin ? Nay, there is some- 
thing here that transcends the powers of 
our fallen and defiled race, something more 
pure and holy than the best that man can 
do. Here is a manifestation of Divine virtue 



THE LIVING SACRIFICE, 111 

and heavenly beauty ; here is an unfolding 
of the perfect and eternal Holiness ; here in- 
deed is the Lamb of God in whom is no 
sin. 

But how comes He, then, into a sinful 
world ? How has His life been bound to 
that of corrupt and guilty man ? Why does 
He suffer the pains and sorrows which are 
the punishment of sin, and finally die the 
death of a transgressor ? 

There is but one answer which can ex- 
plain this mystery. There is but one an- 
swer which can justify a just God in per- 
mitting the death of the only pure and 
innocent Being who ever lived on earth. 
He comes voluntarily into the world to offer 
Hiraself as a sacrifice for the world's sin. 
He comes to take away the curse hy bearing 
it in His oivn body. He comes to present 
to God that holy and spotless oblation which 
the lost race could never find. Myriads 
of bulls and goats had been offered in 
vain ; thousands of altars had been drenched 
with blood and blackened with smoke of 
fruitless sacrifice; then said He, ''Lo, I 



112 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

come : in the volume of tlie book it is writ- 
ten of me, to do thy will, O God." To do 
all that the law demands and to suffer all 
that sin has deserved, to drink to the dregs 
the bitter cup of anguish, to endure the 
sharpness of death, to pour out the last 
drop of the willing heart upon the world's 
high altar, and thus to reconcile the world 
to God. 

This was the purpose of Christ's life, 
which lay upon Him from the beginning, 
and without which we cannot understand 
His words or His actions. This is why the 
disciples did not comprehend Him, because 
they saw not the awful Cross towards which 
He was steadily moving. Judged by their 
standards, His life was strange and foolish 
and unsuccessful. He cast away His best 
opportunities of winning the people. He 
chose the path which led Him away from 
favor and power. As a teacher, as a leader, 
as a ruler of Israel, He failed. But as a 
sacrifice for sin, — ah! there He is crowned 
with victory and glory. 

From the first moment of His ministry He 



TEE LIVING SACRIFICE, 113 

took this burden upon Him, — the burden 
of the world's sin, — and He bore it to the 
end. 

Why was His head bowed with grief, and 
His countenance marred above the sons of 
men ? Because the load of the sins of man- 
hind loas pressing upon His heart. Why- 
did His tears fall like rain, as He looked 
down from the hillside on the city that He 
longed to save? Because the sorrow of sin 
— sin which rejected and despised Him^ 
sin which cast away the proffered pardon 
and scorned the mercy of G-od — was pierc- 
ing His soul. Why did He lie upon the 
ground, in the darkness of Gethsemane, and 
sweat great drops of blood in the agony of 
His spirit ? Because the awful weight of a 
worWs sin was crushing Him in heaviness 
even unto death. 

Ah ! not half so heavy was the ponderous 
cross beneath which He toiled to Calvary, 
as the burden of sin which He took upon 
His shoulders. Not half so sharp were the 
nails which pierced His hands and feet, as 
the sorrow for sin which entered into His 
8 



114 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

soul. Not half SO bitter was the desertion 
of His disciples or the loneliness of the cross, 
as the dreadful gloom of that inward desola- 
tion in which His Father's face was lost, 
and He cried out of the depths, " My God, 
my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" 
Why, indeed, even though but for an in- 
stant ? Why, indeed, even though the de- 
sertion was not real, but onlj^ the hiding of 
the Father's face by the black cloud of an- 
guish ? Why did God even seem to forsake 
Him ? Because Ee was hearing the guilt of 
a world's sin; because He was tasting death 
for every man ; because it was only through 
the horrible darkness of that passage that He 
could enter into the light and glory of the 
Redeemer^ s Mngdom. 

And has He truly entered into it ? Has 
the sacrifice availed to remove the curse 
and destroy the enmity? Has the blood 
of Christ made peace between man and 
God? 

III. I answer in the words of the text, 
"Behold the Lamb of God which taketh 
away the sin of the world." When John 



THE LIVING SACRIFICE, 115 

said this it was a dark saying, hard to be 
understood, shining only with the dim ra- 
diance of hope. But to-day it is a light 
saying, clear, glorious, resplendent. For 
the Son of Man has been lifted up, even as 
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilder- 
ness, and those who have believed on Him 
have been saved. 

The saving power of the Cross of Christ is 
no theory ; it is a fact. The sign of shame 
and guilt has become the sign of faith and 
hope. The instrument of torture and death, 
defiled and loathed and hated, has been 
lifted out of the gloom and horror of sin, 
transfigured, crowned with honor and vic- 
tory, and planted forever on the hill of sal- 
vation. The eyes of the world turn to the 
Cross of Christ. Fainting, despairing, dy- 
ing, bound in the prison-houses of crime, 
languishing in the lazarets of sin, crushed 
under the load of transgressions, parched 
and burning with the fever of life, from 
every place of sorrow and suffering and 
darkness, the lost children of man are look- 
ing to the Cross with speechless longing, 



116 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

and feeling its blessed power with unutter- 
able joy. 

When we see the Son of God crucified for 
us we are delivered and healed and made 
alive. The burden is lifted from us, and 
the fetters broken by His pierced hand. 
The precious blood falls upon our hearts, 
and we are made clean and pure. The 
light of love shining from that Divine face 
flows into our souls, and we see God recon- 
ciling the world to Himself in Jesus Christ. 

Here at last, on the Cross, is the sacrifice 
which I have been seeking, but could never 
find ; the pure and perfect offering which 
God cannot refuse. All my works are sin- 
ful and all my offerings tainted with eviL 
Never can I atone for my own sins, or make 
a propitiation which shall take away their 
guilt. But this is the Lamb of God, with- 
out spot or blemish, dying for me. This is 
my sacrifice. I lay hold of the cross. I 
touch these wounded feet and plead with 
God by the merits of that priceless blood to 
forgive my sins. Thou canst not refuse me, 
for my lieart embraces the perfect sacrifice, 



THE LIVING SACRIFICE, 117 

and His offering thou wilt not despise. 
Yes, I know that my sins were all laid 
upon His head ; I know that He bore the 
curse for me ; the chastisement of our peace 
was upon Him, and by His stripes we are 
healed. 

Here too, on the Cross, I see the pattern 
and example of that perfect obedience that 
I fain would render to my God. Gladly 
would I live the life of filial surrender and 
self-sacrifice ; gladly would I give myself 
wholly and perfectly to God, and lose myself 
entirely in His will. But my heart is weak 
and wayward. I cannot do the things that 
I would. I am filled with shame and re- 
proach. I need a stronger, holier motive. 
I lay hold of the Cross. I look up to Him 
who suffers there, and pray, " Blessed Mas- 
ter, make me more like Thyself ; teach me 
the sanctifying power of Thy sacrificial 
love." Oh, how strong and sweet are the 
influences which flow to us from the Cross, 
lifting us up, purifying us, making us will- 
ing to endure and suffer and give ourselves 
more utterly for others ! As we see the 
blessed Saviour bleeding and dying so pa- 



118 



THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 



tiently for us, what will we not gladly do 
for Him ? Can we still love the sins which 
slew Him ? Can we still withhold the 
hearts for which He asks us ? " For Christ'' s 
sahey '^Remember Calvary.'''' These words 
have power beyond all others to deliver us 
from the bondage of evil, and bind us to the 
life of holiness and obedience. 

And here, once more, on the Cross, I see 
the pledge and proof of God's infinite love. 
He has not cast me away from Him into 
the outer darkness. He has not despised, 
or hated, or forgotten me in the shame and 
degradation of my sin. He has loved me, 
and sent His own Son to die for me, and 
redeem me to Himself. Just is He and al- 
together righteous, but He is also forgiving 
and merciful. Who can measure the blessed 
life-giving power which flows from this rev- 
elation of the heart of God upon the Cross 
of Calvary ? It kindles our desires and our 
hopes. It sweeps away the mighty barrier 
of doubt and dread, and draws us gently but 
resistlessly to our Father's breast. It speaks 
to every fallen, downcast, trembling child 
of man, saying, " Fear not, for I am thy God 



THE LIVING SACRIFICE. 119 

and thy Redeemer ; and though thou hast 
lost all beside, my love is still thine, if thou 
wilt take refuge here." 

Can we doubt, or refuse such an invita- 
tion ? When the prodigal son was returning 
from his life of sin and sorrow, with that 
penitent confession upon his lips, ready to 
take the lowest and meanest place among 
his father's servants, I can well believe that 
his heart was still troubled with fears and 
forebodings. What right had he to come 
back? What claim had he upon his father's 
favor? As he drew near to the house he 
may well have trembled, and stood still, 
and turned to go away. But when his fa- 
ther ran to meet him, and threw his kind 
arms about his neck, then all doubt was 
swept away, and he knew that he was loved. 

In the Cross of Christ God is forever 
coming down to meet His sinful children, 
even while yet they are yet a great way off. 
His arms of love are cast about us. We 
are drawn to His forgiving heart. A great 
calm falls upon our weary souls. We have 
peace with God, and the blood of Jesus 
Christ His Son cleanse th us from all sin. 



VI. 

THE LIVING CHRIST. 



VI. 

Revelation i. i8. I am He that Izveth, and was dead ; 
and behold I am alive for evermore, Ameri ; and have 
the keys of hell and of death. 

The world needs more than a Redeemer. 
It needs a Master, a Ruler, a living Lord. 

When the guilt of sin has been taken 
away by the perfect sacrifice of the cross, 
when the inexorable law of righteousness 
has been satisfied and the barrier between 
man and God forever destroyed by the 
death of Jesus, the way of salvation is in- 
deed made free and clear, but the work of 
salvation is not yet accomplished. There 
must be a continuous exercise of divine 
power upon the weakened and perverted 
hearts of men ; there must be an uplifting, 
and quickening and guiding of the world by 
an ever-living and ever-present Saviour. 

Therefore the resurrection is a necessary 
part of the plan of redemption. God could 



124 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

not leave Christ's soul in Hades, nor suffer 
His Holy One to see conniption. For then, 
although the sacrifice on Calvary was com- 
plete and sufficient, it would have been lost 
in the darkness of the grave. It would never 
have rescued the world from death. It 
would have made salvation possible but not 
actual. Passing into histoiy, it would have 
left the record, that although the justice of 
God was vindicated in the perfect satisfac- 
tion of the law, and although the mercy of 
God was revealed in the sending of His own 
Son to die for sinners, yet. for all that, 
mankind was lest, for want of a living and 
abiding Christ. 

I pray you to mark this truth. A dead 
Christ can never save us. Even thougrh He 
be crucified for us, even though our sins be 
laid upon Him and our curse borne in His 
body on the tree, even though we behold 
Him delivered for our offences and slain for 
our redemption, — a dead Christ upon the 
cross can never save us. 

There must be the living Christ in our 
hearts. He must be raised again for our 



THE LIVING CHRIST, 125 

justification. The sepulchre must give Him 
back to us. The dark under-world, into 
which He descended for our sakes, must 
restore Him to our faith and fellowship. 
Yea, the heaven from which He came must 
receive Him, that He may be clothed once 
more with the glory which He laid aside at 
His birth, that He may no more be hum- 
bled to the narrow confines of a servant's 
form and a servant's life, but reigning in 
restored omniscience and omnipotence and 
omnipresence, may manifest throughout the 
world His wisdom and His power to save to 
the uttermost all that call upon Him. 

This, then, is the glorious meaning of the 
resurrection. It is the divine answer to 
the soul's cry for a living Saviour. It is the 
revelation of One who was subject to the 
power of death willingly and for a season, 
not of necessity and forever. It is the 
shining-forth of the bright and changeless 
Sun of Righteousness, conquering the dark 
grave-clouds and rejoicing as a strong man 
to run His everlasting race of glory and 
blessing. It is the assurance to the world 



126 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

that the Son of Man did not perish in His 
attempt to redeem humanity, but won the 
victory in the shadowy reahii of death, van- 
quishing the great adversary, capturing cap- 
tivity ; and henceforth He is manifested as 
Jesus Christ the Son of God, the same yes- 
terday, to-day, and forever. 

You see, now, why the Church built upon 
this fact of the resurrection as the corner- 
stone of her faith. You see why she made 
it the great theme of her preaching to pro- 
claim Jesus and the resurrection. You see 
why she chose not Friday, the day on which 
Christ died, but Sunday, the day on which 
He rose from the dead, as her holy-day of 
rest and gladness. Not because the resur- 
rection is more sacred or more important 
than the crucifixion ; but because, without 
the resurrection, the crucifixion would be an 
unutterable and irremediable loss, the dis- 
appearance of the most holy life and char- 
acter that the world has ever seen, the 
vanishing forever from the earth of the most 
precious power that has ever entered it, 
yes, the seal of failure upon the work of 



THE LIVING CHRIST, 127 

Christ and the annihilation of all our hopes 
of immortality and heaven, for "if Christ 
be not raised your faith is vain ; ye are yet 
in your sins." But if He be risen then our 
faith is sure. Then the triumph of love 
and life over sin and death is accomplished 
and secure. Then the dawning of every 
Lord's day that shines upon our darkened 
earth brings to us a bright and glad re- 
minder of that eternal light which the 
grave itself could not quench, — that light 
which even now fills the heavens as it fills 
our hearts, — the light of the glory of God 
shining for evermore in the face of Christ 
Jesus. 

To this light I ask you to turn your eyes. 
Away from all that is transitory and perish- 
ing, away from all that is threatened by 
change and shadowed by decay, away from 
all that feels the power of mortal pain and 
sorrow and dissolution, let us look to Him 
that livetli and was dead and is alive for 
evermore and hath the keys of hell and of 
death. Let us rest our souls upon the real- 
ity of the living Christ. 



128 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

I. Consider, in the first place, the glorious 
certainty of the fact that on the third day 
after His death. He left the grave and came 
forth alive into the living world. This 
fact I say is a glorious certainty. There is 
no event in history so well attested. If we 
can be sure of anything in the past we can 
be sure of this. 

We know that Christ is risen because His 
sepulchre is empty. Where is He gone ? 
What power has broken the imperial seal 
of Rome, and rolled away the ponderous 
stone from the mouth of the tomb ? The 
feeble, scattered, trembling disciples who 
fled in terror when they saw Him con- 
demned to die ? Impossible. Physically 
impossible, that they should have braved 
and baffled and overcome the power of the 
world-empire as it was embodied in those 
stern and vigilant soldiers guarding the seal 
which it was death to touch. Morally im- 
possible, that these men, whose character 
was so pure and true that the world owes 
to them its spiritual regeneration, should 
ever have stooped to an act of the basest 



% 



THE LIVING CHRIST. 129 

deceit, should ever have stolen away their 
Master's body by craft, and then adhered 
with unalterable pertinacity to a falsehood 
whose only consequence was to expose them 
to the world's bitterest hatred and perse- 
cution. Men do not steal or lie without a 
motive. What motive could have induced 
the disciples of Christ to perpetrate such a 
fiction as this, — a fiction which must have 
separated them forever from their Master, 
whose words were purity and truth, — a 
fiction which involved the sacrifice of all 
that they held dearest on earth, their former 
religion, their homes, their friends, their 
property, their peace, their lives ? Do j^ou 
believe that men will make such sacrifices 
for a baseless and fruitless lie? Incredible. 
By the stone rolled away, by the vacant 
sepulchre, by the deserted grave-clothes, 
we know that Christ Himself has left the 
tomb. 

We know it also by the testimony of 
many unimpeachable witnesses who saw 
Jesus in the flesh after He had risen, — men 
and women who were in no condition to see 

9 



130 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

a vision of exalted fancy, for the dreadful 
gloom of the crucifixion, the strong im- 
pression of that visible and unmistakable 
death, still rested on their minds. They 
had seen Him with their own eyes as He 
hung upon the cross. They had watched 
the heavings of His suffering breast, and 
seen the pallor settling on His brow. They 
had heard the last cry of agony and triumph, 
and beheld the wounded head fall upon His 
bosom. They had seen the spear thrust 
into His side, and felt the dead weight of 
His body as they lifted it from the accursed 
tree and laid it reverently in the rock-hewn 
sepulchre. They had come, — as soon as 
the Sabbath was, passed and He had been 
so long dead that His enemies would feel no 
fear in admitting them to His sepulchre, — 
they had come very early in the morning 
of the first day of the week, not with any 
hope or thought of seeing Him alive, but 
with sweet spices that they might tenderly 
embalm His dead body. Were these the 
people to dream dreams or see ghosts ? 
Were these the hearts in which such a 



THE LIVING CHRIST. 131 

magnificent and startling conception as the 
resurrection could create itself out of noth- 
ing, and, in spite of the sorrowful evidence 
of a memory but three days old, force them 
to believe in its reality ? I tell you these 
women and these disciples knew the facts 
of Jesus' death only too well ; and nothing 
but a fact could have made them believe 
that He was alive again. 

They tell us that they saw the risen Jesus. 
And mark the manner in which they saw 
Him. They do not tell us that Christ 
appeared to them in trances or midnight 
visions of ecstasy, but in the common walks 
of daily life, in the garden of the Arima- 
thean Joseph, on the high-road to Emmaiis, 
by the sea-shore where they were busy with 
their fishing. He talked with them, ate 
with them, they touched Him. They do 
not relate marvelous tales of garments rust- 
ling and features dimly gleaming in the 
shade of darkened rooms. In the cool hours 
of the early morning, under the searching 
sunlight, in the open air, Jesus comes to 
them. They do not tell us only of what 



132 



THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 



was seen by solitary wanderers in tlieir 
lonely hours ; but they assure us that He 
was seen of more tban five hundred breth- 
ren at one time, in the clear daylight. 
And this assurance was written, not long 
afterwards when all of the alleged behold- 
ers were dead, but within less than thirty 
years after the death of Christ, when many 
of the eye-witnesses still lived and could 
bear testimony to its truthfulness. These 
are not the words of madness or deceit. 
They are calm and dispassionate narratives 
which bear the tests of evidence. They 
cannot be explained on any other suppo- 
sition than the reality of the resurrection. 

Moreover, we know that Christ is risen 
because the faith in His resurrection has 
produced such vast and enduring results in 
the world. It is on the strength of this 
fact that His religion has been accepted 
and has won its mighty triumphs in the 
world. A French philosopher was once 
complaining to a friend that although he 
had invented a most beautiful religion, he 
could not persuade any one to believe it. 



THE LIVING CHRIST, 133 

"I will tell you what you shall do," said the 
friend ; '-^you shall get yourself crucified and 
rise again on the third day from the dead ; 
then every one will believe it,'''* 

In this keen reply a great truth lies hid- 
den. The secret of Christianity is the reality 
of the resurrection. This is the fountain- 
head to which we may trace the stream of 
its success. By this stupendous fact we 
see, first of all, the disciples transformed 
from trembling, doubting cowards, over- 
whelmed with disappointment and despair, 
into brave, confident soldiers, full of zeal, 
courage, strength. We see the faith which 
had obtained, during the years of Christ's 
ministry in the flesh, but a few hundred ad- 
herents, suddenly winning in a single day 
three thousand souls. We see those who 
had been cold, mistrustful, hostile toward 
Jesus changed into His ardent disciples, and 
setting forth without misgiving to conquer 
the world for Him. We see the resurrec- 
tion-faith sweeping like a flood of light over 
land and sea, conquering all obstacles, gain- 
ing cities and tribes and whole nations for its 



134 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

own, and covering the earth with countless 
spires, each one of which points up to heaven 
as a silent witness that Christ is risen. 

Are not these vast and innumerable ceme- 
teries of the world, crowded with the memo- 
rials of a deathless hope even in the face 
of death, evidences of the reality of the res- 
urrection? Is not this long line of more than 
ninety thousand Christian Sundays stretch- 
ing back like a row of shining, glorious, im- 
movable pillars to the garden of the Ari- 
mathean, a monument to the reality of the 
resurrection? Yes, we know that it is true. 
Because the darkness is broken and the 
shadows flee away from the soul of man, 
because the clouds that hang above the 
grave are touched with light and glory, be- 
cause the flowers of faith and love and hope 
and holiness have unclosed their folded 
leaves and blossomed around the earth, we 
know that the Sun, even the Lord Christ, is 
risen. 

But if we need another evidence, we have 
it in the testimony of those who have seen 
the risen Saviour in the splendor of His 



J 



THE LIVING CHRIST, 135 

heavenly existence. Three men, pure, sober, 
trustworthy, have beheld in the flesh this 
majestic vision, and left the record of what 
they saw for our faith to build upon. 

Stephen, the first martyr, dying amid the 
stones and curses of his enemies, looked up- 
ward, and saw the heavens opened, and the 
Son of Man standing on the right hand of 
God. 

Saul of Tarsus, journeying to Damascus 
on his mission of persecution and death to 
the Christians, was smitten to the ground 
in the cloudless noonday by a light far 
above the brightness of the sun, and beheld 
in the midst of the glory the form of that 
Jesus whom he persecuted. 

John, dwelling in lonely exile on the rocky 
isle of Patmos, was in the spirit on the Lord's 
day, and heard a mighty voice like the sound 
of many waters, and saw, in the heart of an 
undescribable radiance, one like unto the 
Son of Man, clothed with a splendor so 
majestic that John fell at his feet as dead. 
But the Lord laid His right hand upon him 
and said, " Fear not : I am the first and the 



136 TEE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

last : I am He that liveth and was dead ; 
and behold I am alive for evermore, Amen ; 
and have the keys of hell and of death." 
Yes, it is the same who once hung upon the 
cross in agony and shame so great that the 
sun hid his face in horror ; it is the same 
who was wrapped in the grave-clothes and 
laid in the darkness of the sepulchre ; it is 
the same whom His disciples mourned as 
the lost Hope of Israel, and for whose em- 
balmment the sorrowing women brought 
sweet spices on that Sunday morning eigh- 
teen hundred years ago ; it is the same Jesus 
now crowned with honor and glory at the 
right hand of God. This is He that liveth 
and was dead. The grave-clothes could not 
bind Him, the tomb could not stay Him, 
the under-world could not contain Him. 
He has risen. He has ascended up on 
high, and behold He is alive for evermore, 
Amen. 

II. Consider, in the second place, the 
nature and evidences of this everlasting life 
which belongs to the risen Christ. Clearly 
it must be a reality, not a mere ideal or 



THE LIVING CHRIST, 137 

imaginary existence. And just as clearly it 
must be a mysterious and incomprehensible 
reality. We cannot look with our feeble 
and darkened eyes into the heavenly regions. 
We cannot discern or understand the man- 
ner of life in which the ascended Lord now 
dwells. We cannot tell how He looks, or 
in what glorious activities He is employed, 
or in what shining place His blessed throne 
is established. 

" Jesus, these eyes have never seen 

That radiant form of Thine ; 
The veil of sense hangs dark between 
Thy blessed face and mine." 

But one thing we do know, one thing we 
may be sure of: — the life of the risen 
Christ, reaching away out into the endless 
future, with all the power of sympathy and 
help won by His earthly experience, with 
all the might and glory of His victory over 
sin and death, abiding and growing through 
ages of ages, — this divine immortal life is 
for evermore a life for men, a life of succor 
and comfort, blessing and salvation, flowing 
out in heavenly grace and power into this 
sorrowful and sinful earth. 



138 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

Here we toucb. the reality on its human 
side. Here we find that which we can 
know and understand. Here, in the moral 
and spiritual life of man, we behold the evi- 
dences of the living Christ, still dwelling 
and working in the world which He died to 
redeem. 

Observe the bearing of this a>rgument. 
We rely for the proof of the historical fact 
that Christ rose from the dead upon histor- 
ical evidence. We rely for the proof of the 
spiritual fact that Christ is alive for ever- 
more upon spiritual evidence. But the two 
facts correspond and are linked together. 
If Christ be not risen, then all the inward 
life of Christendom is a dream, a delusion, 
a lie. But if Christ be risen, then all the 
influences of puritj^- and love and goodness 
that are working in the hearts of men, all 
the heavenly hopes and aspirations and 
endeavors of the world, are the proofs and 
revelations of His present and everlasting 
life. 

Is the Gospel still an active and potent 
force in the world, quickening men who are 



THE LIVING CHRIST. 139 

dead in trespasses and sins, converting them, 
building them up in righteousness and love, 
enlightening them with heavenly wisdom, 
and comforting them with heavenly grace? 
It is because the voice of the living Christ 
still speaks in it. Are the Sacraments filled 
with spiritual life and strength, satisfying 
and nourishing the soul with divine food ? 
It is because they are made the channels 
of the power of the living Christ. Is the 
Church alive, throbbing and glowing with 
faith and love, laboring earnestly and pa- 
tiently for the salvation of men, shining 
with a more than earthly radiance, aspir- 
ing, hoping, struggling upward, sending out 
from her warm, deep heart the streams of 
pity and compassion and unselfish charity 
without which this world would be an un- 
endurable desert? It is because she is the 
body of the living Christ. If He were 
dead she must perish. But because He is 
alive she lives also. 

Wherever human hearts are reaching up 
from the shadows of this mortal sphere to 
lay hold upon the eternal God, wherever 



140 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

tlie pure flowers of truth and peace and 
holiness are springing from the dull and 
barren soil of humanity, wherever men and 
women are suffering patientlj^, toiling nobly, 
giving themselves generously for the good 
of others, wherever the Holy Ghost is work- 
ing, wherever faith is burning, wherever 
love is shining, there is the living Christ. 

All light and power and goodness come 
from Him. The Divine Spirit who keeps 
the world from death, who quickens in our 
hearts the mysterious heavenly life, is His 
messenger and witness, proceeding not from 
the Father only, but from the Father and 
the Son. He reveals unto us not a dead 
Christ, but the living Christ ; and we know 
the truth of Paul's saying, " I am crucified 
with Christ : nevertheless I live : yet not I, 
but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which 
I now live in the flesh I live by the faith 
of the Son of God who loved me and gave 
Himself for me." 

^'Christ in us the hoioe of glory ^^ — this is 
no dream, no fable, but a blessed reality. 

There is not a power which He exercised, 



THE LIVING CHRIST. 141 

there is not a quality which He manifested, 
in His earthly ministry, which He is not 
exercising and manifesting to-day in the 
hearts of men. Did He rule then with 
gracious power over the souls of the few 
who knew and loved Him ? He is reigning 
to-day over thousands and tens of thousands 
of living hearts who would gladly die for 
the honor of His name. Did He restore the 
sick and comfort the sorrowing? He is 
giving life and health to-day to many a 
penitent sinner, and pouring His consola- 
tions like balm into many a wounded and 
suffering spirit. Did He give rest to the 
weary and heavy-laden? His peace is still 
flowing like a river into many a troubled 
soul. His voice is still hushing the storms 
of grief and passion. His benediction is still 
resting upon our hearts even as His kind 
hands once rested on the heads of the little 
children at His knee. 

" In joy of inward peace, or sense 
Of sorrow over sin, 
He is His own best evidence ; 
His witness is within. 



142 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

" Xo fable old, nor mythic lore, 
Nor dream of bards and seers ; 
No dead fact stranded on the shore 
Of the oblivious years, — 

"But warm, sweet, tender, even yet 
A present help is He ; 
And faith has still its Olivet, 
And love its Galilee. 

*' The healing of His seamless dress 
Is by our beds of pain ; 
We touch Him in life's throng and press, 
And we are whole again. 

*' Lord and Master of us all, 
Whate'er our name or sign, 
We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call. 
We test our lives by Thine. 

" Apart from Thee all gain is loss, 
All labor vainly done ; 
The solemn shadow of Thy cross 
Is better than the sun. 

" Alone, Love ineffable, 
Thy saving name is given ; 
To turn aside from Thee is hell, — 
To walk with Thee is heaven.'' 

III. Finally, let us remember that this 
risen Christ, who liveth and was dead and is 



THE LIVING CHRIST, 143 

alive for evermore, is He who holds the 
keys of hell and of death. 

Oh, that I could find the power to express 
the joy and comfort which dwell in this 
majestic truth ! 

It has been well said, by one who speaks 
always to the heart, that there are many 
doors about us in the world, — doors of joy 
and sorrow, doors of labor and suffering, 
doors of success and failure. And as our 
lives go on we are passing through them 
one by one ; we are finding out what lies 
behind them ; our experience is putting 
into our hand the keys which unlock them 
and disclose their secrets. But there is one 
door which baffles us. Dark, cold, forbid- 
ding, it stands in the midst of this green 
and beautiful world, — the iron door of 
death. All the paths of mortal life lead 
thither; but there is none that returns from 
that mysterious portal. We see men and 
women and little children vanishing within 
its gloom ; year by year, those that are 
nearest and dearest are passing away from 
us over that stern threshold ; but not one 



114 THE REALITY OF RELIGION. 

of them comes back to us to tell us what is 
beyond. Our own footsteps are drawing 
near to it : we cannot shun or escape it : a 
heavy hand is on us pushing us forward. 
Through the flowers and sunshine, through 
the thorns and tempests, through every year 
and every day, we are moving toward that 
iron door. 

We tremble. We are afraid. Our hearts 
are chilled and darkened by the awful mys- 
tery. Who will open this door for us ? 
Who will show us the things which lie be- 
hind it ? Who will unlock and disclose the 
m*ystery of death? 

Behold the living Christ. He has passed 
through that shadowy portal, and has come 
back again. He holds the keys of the grave 
and of the under -world. He stands be- 
side us in the hour of fear and grief. He 
touches the heavy door and it swings open. 
We see the inner side of it, and lo ! it is not 
of iron hut of gold^for it is the door of the 
heavenly city. Dark is the entrance of that 
gateway, but just within its shadow lies the 
world of light. Lonely is the brief passage 



THE LIVING CHRIST. 145 

to the eye of mortal sense, but the moment 
of parting is the moment of meeting with 
God, and Jesus, and the innumerable com- 
pany of angels and ransomed saints. 

Stoop down and look through that narrow 
opening, O mourning heart, and you shall 
see that those whom you bewail as lost are 
dwelling in peace and blessedness, and wait- 
ing for you to join them. Weep no more. 
Rejoice, be glad, and sing. The mystery of 
death is solved. The shadow of death is 
broken. For those who are in Christ, to be 
absent from the body is to be present with 
the Lord. This life of ours is no brief and 
transient stream, flowing turbidly through 
a few short years, and then sinking in the 
grave. It is immortal, glorious, blessed. 
Through the dark portal it passes instantly 
into light and peace. 

Are the birds singing here with joyous 
melody ? Yonder the angels are singing 
forever about the throne. 

Are the flowers blooming here in fragrance 
and beauty ? Yonder the tree of life is blos- 
soming beside the crystal waters. 

10 



146 THE REALITY OF RELIGION, 

Is the sun shining here in majesty and 
glory ? Yonder the face of Christ is shin- 
ing^ and they need no candle^ neither light 
of the sun, for the Lord Grod giveth them 
lights and they shall reign forever and ever. 



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